Gender and age differences in same-sex aggregation and social behavior - A four-culture study

Children's tendencies to aggregate with same-sex others and to increase spatial experience with age are investigated among 3- to 9-year-olds in four non-Western communities. Also investigated are gender-specific social behaviors, labeled by Eleanor Maccoby as male-style and female-style play. Analysis of naturalistic observations of daily activities indicate that during free time in all cultures, older children (7- and 9-year-olds) are much more involved in both same-sex aggregation and away-from-home spatial experience than are younger children (3- and 5-year-olds) and that older boys are more strongly involved in these events than are older girls. Older boys also display a marked degree of same-sex aggregation when enacting the male-style behaviors of physicality and attention seeking, but girls do not display a similar same-sex aggregation for any category of social behavior. Children's levels of gender understanding are unrelated to the outcomes.