"Boys Will Be Boys" and Other Myths

 "Boys will be boys," once a common explanation for multitudes of mischief, is no longer said with confidence. In the last twenty years, hundreds of studies aimed at sorting out which sex differences are inherent at birth from those that are learned have knocked down one myth after another about the behavior and personalities of children of each sex.

Biology or Society?

But myths are quite resistant to all the new information available. And it seems that many of the mythical differences between boys and girls are in the eyes of the beholder.

When a group of adults in an experiment were shown a film of a very young child at play, they gave quite different accounts of the child's behavior, depending on whether they were told they were watching a boy or a girl. When adults thought they were watching a boy, they "saw" greater pleasure and less fear in "his" play; these descriptions were reversed when viewers thought they were watching a girl.

Apparently adults in all cultures respond differently to boys and girls from the very moment of birth. So it is not surprising that there are differences in behavior, though they cannot be attributed to powerful sex-linked biological factors. Among the differences that currently are thought to be biologically based are greater verbal aptitude in females and superiority in spatial reasoning in males. But these differences are so small that they do not really merit attention; indeed, recent analyses of studies have cast doubt on these sex differences, too.

Aggression and Play

Even aggressiveness, traditionally assumed to be more natural for boys than for girls, has been shown to be more related to the activities and structure of the environment than to the sex of the child. When girls play with trucks, cars, and trains, they do so just as actively and aggressively as boys do. The fact that they play with such male-type toys less often than boys means they display their aggression and activity levels less often.

Accumulated research has revealed the early appearance of clear differences in the activity preferences of the two sexes. Preschool boys, more than girls, tend to play in the part of the preschool or home where there is less structure, less adult supervision, and fewer constraints. But when girls do the same, they are just as exploratory, inventive, and active as boys are. In general, girls seem to learn very early to play close by the adult in the setting and to engage in more constrained and conventional activities. This pattern helps explain why girls get more instructions and feedback from teachers than boys do.

Though girls get more instructions from teachers than boys, and their speech is acknowledged more often than boys' speech, boys' appropriate behavior gets more attention than girls'. Research also indicates that boys do not comply with adults as readily as girls do. Thus, when boys' behavior is acceptable, it is readily acknowledged.

So, if there are few biologically-based differences between boys and girls in their personalities and behavior, there are many differences that can be accounted for by the way parents, teachers, and peers respond to them.

Peer Pressure

Several studies have shown that children receive most of their social reactions from their peers of the same sex. Since peers tend to be conservative about sex-appropriate behavior, disapproving noticeably of opposite-sex activity—especially for boys—the peer group is a powerful force in sex-role socialization.

Whether or not to make a big issue over appropriate sex-role behavior—such as playing with sex-typed toys and games—is a matter for each family to decide. However, some long-term consequences may be at stake: girls who are denied opportunities to engage in some of the exploratory, adventurous kinds of play normally preferred by boys may be at a disadvantage later when they are learning math, science, and technological skills, and when making career choices. And boys who are encouraged to engage in activities normally preferred by girls may need adult help and support to cope with teasing and rejection by their same sex peers.

 ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Children's Research Center,
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Phone: (217) 333-1386; Fax: (217) 333-3767; Email: ericeece@uiuc.edu

1986 by Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing. Reprinted from Parents Magazine by permission. Funded in part by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI.

NPIN Acquisition: N00190. Pre-1998.