Male monkeys prefer boys' toys - NewScientist.com

[Yrys]

Male monkeys prefer boys' toys

It's thought of as a sexual stereotype: boys tend to play with toy cars and diggers, while girls like dolls. But male monkeys, suggests research, are no different .

This could mean that males, whether human or monkey, have a biological predisposition to certain toys, says Kim Wallen, a psychologist at Yerkes National Primate
Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Wallen's team looked at 11 male and 23 female rhesus monkeys. In general the males preferred to play with wheeled toys, such as
dumper trucks, over plush dolls, while female monkeys played with both kinds of toys. This conclusion may upset those psychologists who insist that sex differences – for
example the tendency of boys to favour toy soldiers and girls to prefer dolls – depend on social factors, not innate differences.

Guys and dolls

"A five-year-old boy whose compatriots discover has a collection of Barbies is likely to take a lot of flak," Wallen says. Social factors undoubtedly influence children's
preferences, he says, but in general boys tend to be pickier with toys than girls.

To try and tease out the effects of nature over those of nurture, Wallen and his colleagues studied a group of captive rhesus monkeys. His team reasoned that the choices
of the monkeys wouldn't be determined by social pressures. Most of the study animals were juvenile (age one to four years), but some sub-adult and adult monkeys were
included. "They are not subject to advertising. They are not subject to parental encouragement, they are not subject to peer chastisement," Wallen says.

Monkey fun

Wallen's team offered the monkeys two categories of toys: "wheeled" and "plush". The wheeled toys, intended to be masculine, included wagons and vehicles. The more
feminine plush toys included Winnie the Pooh and Raggedy-Ann dolls. Two toys, one wheeled and one plush, were placed 10 metres apart. At first the monkeys formed a
circle around a toy, but eventually one would snatch the toy and run off. Other monkeys soon joined in the fun, Wallen says.

The researchers captured play sessions on video and measured how long each monkey spent with plush versus wheeled toys. The team found that the males spent more
time playing with wheeled toys, while the females played with both plush and wheeled toys equally.

'Compelling results'

Wallen cautions against over-interpreting the results. The plush and wheeled categories served as proxies for feminine and masculine, but other toy characteristics, such
as size or colour, might explain the male's behaviour, he says. Or the male monkeys might seek out more physically active toys, he says.

But the study ties in with a previous experiment with green vervet monkeys showing that males favour masculine toys. "Together the results are compelling," says
Gerianne Alexander, a psychologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, who led the vervet monkey study. She thinks that biological differences between sexes start
the ball rolling toward learned preferences for play toys. "There is likely to be a biological tendency that is amplified by society," she says.

Journal reference: Hormones and Behavior (DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.03.008)

 

[vonGarvin]

Social engineering just took a hit.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that more men want to be a rocket scientist than women, and that more women are nurses than men for a reason. 
To be predisposed to something based on gender may get some people's noses out of joint, but facts are facts.  I never played with dolls: I played with Action Figures ;D

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . .  I never played with dolls: I played with Action Figures ;D

Yeah, but sometimes you probably got a Barbie doll for G.I. Joe to have on R&R.

 

[Mike Baker]

Yeah, but sometimes you probably got a Barbie doll for G.I. Joe to have on R&R.

I was tempted to do that once. Dad wasn't too happy.

 

[ballz]

Whoever gets offended by stuff like saying "males know more about cars" or "males make better athletes" or "women are cleaner" is just stupid anyway. Of course there's exceptions but almost all stereotypes have an amount of truth to them.

 

[vonGarvin]

Whoever gets offended by stuff like saying "males know more about cars" or "males make better athletes" or "women are cleaner" is just stupid anyway. Of course there's exceptions but almost all stereotypes have an amount of truth to them.

Oh really?  Such as Blacks dance better?  That the Irish are drunks?  That Germans are nazis?  That Jews are all bankers?

Puh-lease.
I know bugger all about cars, I'm no athlete, but I'm a tidy person.  Does that make me a woman?  :

 

[Yrys]

I know bugger all about cars, I'm no athlete, but I'm a tidy person.  Does that make me a woman?  :

OH! That's WHY you post on the menstruation thread (brain clicking)  >

 

[Shamrock]

Puh-lease.
I know bugger all about cars, I'm no athlete, but I'm a tidy person.  Does that make me a woman?  :

No, but it does make you a good wife.

 

[Yrys]

No, but it does make you a good wife.

Mmm, maybe we should ask his/her wife  !

 

[Celticgirl]

OH! That's WHY you post on the menstruation thread (brain clicking)  >

Yrys: 1      Rockpainter: 0

;D

 

[Yrys]

Yrys: 1      Rockpainter: 0

;D

That would be nice if it could stay that way, but as I send a P.M. suggesting that he post there,
I'm not counting on it ...

However, s/he didn't have to follow my suggestion 

 

[vonGarvin]

You guys are killing me
LOL
I'm going to take my knitting, my bottle of Zinfadel, sit in the couch and watch Oprah! 

 

[Yrys]

You guys are killing me
LOL
I'm going to take my knitting, my bottle of Zinfadel, sit in the couch and watch Oprah! 

So, you're a wife, and we're guys ?

When did the change of universe/name of gender happen (scratching head  :-\ )  ?


Add :

However, "more Jews are bankers then non-Jews" may have been thruth in Middle Age, when Christians
saw money as dirty, and a lot of professions were not accessible to Jews.

 

[MamaBear]

I'm going to take my knitting, my bottle of Zinfadel, sit in the couch and watch Oprah! 

Don't forget this.....  (thanks Vern)

 

[ballz]

Oh really?  Such as Blacks dance better?  That the Irish are drunks?  That Germans are nazis?  That Jews are all bankers?

Puh-lease.
I know bugger all about cars, I'm no athlete, but I'm a tidy person.  Does that make me a woman?  :

black people can jump higher, black people are criminals, teenagers are all vandals and shoplifters, women don't know jack about cars, all priests are child molestors.

i never said stereotypes are true, i said they are BASED on a truth...
there is a considerably high crime rate amongst black people. does that mean ALL black people are criminals like the stereotype would suggest? no, but the stereotype is based on a true fact.
i can explain the rest of them all, but its all pretty much the same statement. yes, irish people tend to drink more, im living proof, and yes, black people CAN dance better  ;D

 

[Blackadder1916]

i never said stereotypes are true, i said they are BASED on a truth... 

Stereotypes are not based on "truth", they are based on perception (and often misperception) typically formed from limited knowledge or experience about the group/individual who is the subject of the stereotype.  Perhaps you should drink less and think more (damn, there I go, buying into the stereotype about those of Irish ancestry) before you contribute further to possible negative stereotyping of those who frequent this forum.

 

[ballz]

So you're telling me that the reason people associate drug and alcohol problems with the native population in Canada is not because they in fact have a drug and alcohol problem but because of misinformation...

Look, i'm not justifying stereotypes. I don't just assume because one is native that he/she is an alcoholic or drug user.
That doesn't change the fact there is a high rate of drug and alcohol problem within the native population, and the people that DO assume all natives are alcoholics and/or drug abusers are making that assumption based on the cold hard fact that there IS an existing drug and alcohol problem within that group.

Just calling it as I see it. Sure looks like a spade to me.

 

[armchair_throwaway]

Male monkeys prefer boys' toys - NewScientist.com

Male monkeys may prefer boy's toys, but the female prefer boy toys.

*back to lurking*

 

[vonGarvin]

Male monkeys may prefer boy's toys, but the female prefer boy toys.

*back to lurking*

No! No! No!
It's BOYS' toys!  ;D

 

[Shamrock]

Male monkeys are born with their own favourite toy (and best friend and primary decision maker).