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Thank you very much for providing actual evidence as opposed to speculation. However, there is room for interpretation here, and I am not sure the evidence is

Thank you very much for providing actual evidence as opposed to speculation. However, there is room for interpretation here, and I am not sure the evidence is quite as conclusive as you seem to suggest. Its not strange at all for published articles on the bleeding edge of science to be shown later to be incorrect. And there are some things that hit me when looking at the abstracts. For example, in that first study observing behavior from six females and two males seems enough to suggest that there is a "greater female interest in infant care, with stick-carrying being a form of play-mothering". Unfortunately, I don't think that is quite enough conclusive evidence to make any conclusions about chimpanzee behavior beyond those particular individuals, let alone that of the entire family of great apes. In that third study, I seriously question the gendered objects. A toy pot might be a girl toy in human society, but I question whether the same is true in vervet monkey society. Do vervet monkeys hold a sterotype for female vervet monkeys cooking with a pot in the kitchen, before they invent cooking, pots or kitchens? And I don't understand how it is that a plush toy is female, but a stuffed dog is ungendered. I'd be interested in reading the full papers if anyone can pass on links to the full papers. I'm sure I remember coming across these same studies previously. I suspect that negative results are not actually published and there is a lot of existing pressure to confirm existing cultural beliefs in order to actually get published. Look at what happened to the Harvard President Lawrence Summers when he questioned whether women have less aptitude for science. There is a lot of emotion behind this (and I won't deny being very biased myself). Though I have to admit that the evidence does point towards a gendered difference in toy preference, I just felt the need to question its conclusiveness.

thelamest 13y ago
1. Yes, there are differences between sexes/genders. 2. No, they are not of stereotypical delineation/clarity/scale. If anything, we now know more than ever that while people vary, there is no reason to generalize against any social group ability in any matter. 3a. First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes. 3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys. 3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention. .pdfs of mentioned papers are easily findable on Google Scholar.
- nerfhammer 13y ago
  > First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes. The study reported that juvenile female chimps were much more likely to use sticks for doll-like behaviors. Using sticks for other things such as as tools or as weapons were not reported. It has been reported elsewhere the female chimps have a greater propensity to use tools including sticks for food-gathering purposes: http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boesch/pdf/fol_prim_tool_use_making.pdf http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boesch/pdf/fol_prim_tool_... > 3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys. Male monkeys showed a strong preference for wheeled toys over plush dolls, and the preference of female monkeys was smaller, and human children show roughly the same pattern for these toys. Also note that chimps are apes, and vervets and rhesus monkeys are not. > 3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention. Six toy types were studied, not just dolls.
nerfhammer 13y ago
not making any claims about its conclusiveness, the poster to which I was replying made an argument to incredulity to which there is actually contradicting evidence. Since chimpanzees are relatively sexually dimorphic perhaps they are not a good way to argue against human sex differences. Also since chimps and monkeys have less sophisticated use of objects it shouldn't be surprising that the evidence has some degree of muddling but we know that there are sex differences in play behavior, such as male juveniles monkeys preferring rough-and-tumble play, or females showing more interest in the infants in their group (which the studies I cited earlier reference). If I were to make a more general case, however, this wouldn't be the only evidence that I would rely on. You might look at studies of very young children, younger than it is believed they would be aware of their gender: http://jbd.sagepub.com/content/25/1/7.abstract http://jbd.sagepub.com/content/25/1/7.abstract If you're disinclined to belief update from that, you could still say they were still influenced by culture somehow. Going further you could look at even eye-tracking studies of infants: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016318 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016318 If you were still disinclined, you could say there's still social influence in there, maybe, it can't be ruled out... But then look at evidence of prenatal hormone exposure, such as digit ratio (marker of androgen): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909002694?np=y http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909... Or those with hormonal disorders: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12414881 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12414881 http://pss.sagepub.com/content/3/3/203.short http://pss.sagepub.com/content/3/3/203.short http://people.uncw.edu/hungerforda/Infancy/PDF/Prenatal%20hormones%20and%20postnatal%20socialization.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/hungerforda/Infancy/PDF/Prenatal%20ho... If toy preferences are socially constructed, why would an obscure endocrine disorder predict toy preference according to the hormones that boys or girls were more typically exposed to? The latter study suggests that those with atypical hormone exposure face increased socialization pressure to conform, yet which apparently shows the least influence on their preference.

thelamest 13y ago

1. Yes, there are differences between sexes/genders. 2. No, they are not of stereotypical delineation/clarity/scale. If anything, we now know more than ever that while people vary, there is no reason to generalize against any social group ability in any matter. 3a. First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes. 3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys. 3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention. .pdfs of mentioned papers are easily findable on Google Scholar.

nerfhammer 13y ago
> First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes. The study reported that juvenile female chimps were much more likely to use sticks for doll-like behaviors. Using sticks for other things such as as tools or as weapons were not reported. It has been reported elsewhere the female chimps have a greater propensity to use tools including sticks for food-gathering purposes: http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boesch/pdf/fol_prim_tool_use_making.pdf http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boesch/pdf/fol_prim_tool_... > 3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys. Male monkeys showed a strong preference for wheeled toys over plush dolls, and the preference of female monkeys was smaller, and human children show roughly the same pattern for these toys. Also note that chimps are apes, and vervets and rhesus monkeys are not. > 3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention. Six toy types were studied, not just dolls.

nerfhammer 13y ago

not making any claims about its conclusiveness, the poster to which I was replying made an argument to incredulity to which there is actually contradicting evidence. Since chimpanzees are relatively sexually dimorphic perhaps they are not a good way to argue against human sex differences. Also since chimps and monkeys have less sophisticated use of objects it shouldn't be surprising that the evidence has some degree of muddling but we know that there are sex differences in play behavior, such as male juveniles monkeys preferring rough-and-tumble play, or females showing more interest in the infants in their group (which the studies I cited earlier reference). If I were to make a more general case, however, this wouldn't be the only evidence that I would rely on. You might look at studies of very young children, younger than it is believed they would be aware of their gender: http://jbd.sagepub.com/content/25/1/7.abstract http://jbd.sagepub.com/content/25/1/7.abstract If you're disinclined to belief update from that, you could still say they were still influenced by culture somehow. Going further you could look at even eye-tracking studies of infants: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016318 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016318 If you were still disinclined, you could say there's still social influence in there, maybe, it can't be ruled out... But then look at evidence of prenatal hormone exposure, such as digit ratio (marker of androgen): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909002694?np=y http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909... Or those with hormonal disorders: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12414881 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12414881 http://pss.sagepub.com/content/3/3/203.short http://pss.sagepub.com/content/3/3/203.short http://people.uncw.edu/hungerforda/Infancy/PDF/Prenatal%20hormones%20and%20postnatal%20socialization.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/hungerforda/Infancy/PDF/Prenatal%20ho... If toy preferences are socially constructed, why would an obscure endocrine disorder predict toy preference according to the hormones that boys or girls were more typically exposed to? The latter study suggests that those with atypical hormone exposure face increased socialization pressure to conform, yet which apparently shows the least influence on their preference.