Lighten Up Sister: Women tougher on same sex friendships

canada.com - Contrary to the nurturing images of sisterhood put forth by chick flicks, female friendships can be a ticking time bomb of fickleness and judgment, according to results of a study in the journal Psychological Science.

Traditional views hold that women are more socially co-operative than men, but researchers from the Université du Québec à Montréal, Harvard University and Emmanuel College in Boston found female same-sex friendships are significantly less tolerant, more volatile, and likelier to degrade based on a single negative incident than male same-sex friendships.

The study's authors conclude that the deep emotional investment often thought to make women's bonds stronger is often their undoing.

"It's lovely (for women) to think, 'We care more about relationships, so we hold friends to higher standards,' " says lead author Joyce Benenson, who works in Harvard's department of biological anthropology.

"But the practical ramifications are that we can't do the slightest thing wrong ... And if we can't care for somebody who screws up, that makes our position on friendship very precarious."

In three separate tests, men consistently proved the more tolerant same-sex friends.

Men were far likelier than women to be satisfied with their college roommate (100 per cent versus 46 per cent), even when involved in a conflict with that person (73 per cent versus 33 per cent). In double-occupancy dorms at universities of different sizes, men were, on average, only half as likely as women to request a room change (4.2 per cent versus 8.4 per cent).

And when participants were asked to judge a single negative behaviour by an otherwise dependable (hypothetical) best friend, women downgraded the friend's reliability significantly more so than men.

"The standards are very high for women," says Benenson, an associate professor of psychology. "They're on thin ice all the time."... Read full article »

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