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Article Excerpt
Sixty-four kindergarten children participated in a bead-collecting game. Their competitive, noncompetitive, and other moves were measured. Gender and gender composition of the group affected competition in the context of playing this game with known peers. The boys were more competitive than the girls. Girls in the same-gender groups, but not mixed-gender groups, had low levels of competitive moves overall. Similar rates of strategic moves and game understanding suggest that the noted gender differences were not due to lack of game skill. However, the experience of playing the game can differ for boys and girls, and this difference may be emphasized when girls are playing exclusively with other girls.
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Competition is a widespread but not universal goal (Bonta, 1997). Competition is not the only means for achieving one's goals. Individuals may act cooperatively, reaching for goals jointly with others, or goal achievement can be independent of the achievement of others (Bonta, 1997). Moreover, individuals who use competition under some circumstances may not compete under other circumstances. Therefore, the emergence of competition in early childhood is unlikely to be uniform in nature. Gender, group gender composition, age, group size, familiarity with group members, and resource scarcity are some of the factors that may contribute to shaping children's competitive interactions (e.g., Benenson, Nicholson, Waite, Roy, & Simpson, 2001; Green, Cillessen, Berthelsen, Irving, & Catherwood, 2003; Schmidt, Ollendick, & Stanowicz, 1988). In the current study, competition was examined with attention to the role of gender and gender composition in a group game-playing context with 5-year-old children.
Gender differences in young children's group size and play styles have been well documented (Maccoby, 1998). Typically girls arrange themselves in small groups of two or three with play that is relatively cooperative, whereas boys congregate in larger groups and are more likely than girls to be involved in direct competition with each other. More extreme and stereotypical behavioral differences between preschool boys and girls have been observed when boys and girls play in same-gender groupings (Fabes, Martin, & Hanish, 2003). For example, girls were involved in less active forceful play in the context of playing with other girls than when they played with boys. Differences in social behavior according to the gender of one's play partner have been found in children as young as 33 months old (Jacklin & Maccoby, 1978).
Yet in controlled experiments examining early competition jointly with cooperation, gender differences have not been consistently demonstrated. Green et al. (2003) investigated the effect of gender composition and social competency on competitive and cooperative behavior in a movie-viewing task with unfamiliar 6-year-olds. Only one child at a time was able to look through an eyepiece to see a movie while two other children assisted by operating the apparatus. The authors found that the gender composition of groups appeared to be more influential in children's behavior than did their social competency ratings. Boys achieved more viewing time than girls but only in mixed-gender groups. Notably, girls had more movie-viewing time in same-gender groups as compared with girls in the mixed-gender groups. Conversely, boys had less individual viewing time in same-gender groups as compared with mixed-gender groups. This is consistent with previous research using this paradigm with preschool children; successful access to the desired resource was similar for boys and girls in same-gender groups but not mixed-gender groups (Charlesworth and Dzur, 1987; Charlesworth & LaFreniere, 1983; LaFreniere & Charlesworth, 1987). The gender difference in movie-viewing time found solely in the mixed-gender sessions suggest that gender composition can play an important role for young children in a task that jointly involves competition and cooperation.
Research addressing gender differences in strictly competitive situations has focused on older children in athletic contexts. In one study researchers measured and controlled for skill differences in young adolescent (i.e., 12-year-olds) competitors in order to investigate female inhibition during competition (Weisfeld, Weisfeld, & Callaghan, 1982). Groups of boys and groups of girls initially played dodge ball with other groups of boys and girls to determine their skill level (i.e., high or low). Teams were then grouped by level and gender and played three more games. Each group competed against a same-gender group (but different skill level) and two cross-gender groups (one with the same skill level and the other with a different skill level). As the authors predicted, the individual performance of girls was lower when playing against boys as compared with playing against other girls. This pattern was evident even in the case of high-skilled girls playing against low-skilled boys. The girls inhibited their competitive behavior when faced with direct physical competition against boys regardless of their opponents' skill level. This particular form of physical competition involves throwing balls at one's opponents and may be particularly intimidating for girls when they are matched against boys.
In another study involving athletic activity, the researchers compared individual performance in competitive and noncompetitive conditions and found some meaningful gender differences (Gneezy & Rustichini, 2004). The impact of competition on the running time of fourth-grade children (i.e., 10-year-olds) differed for boys and girls even though their initial running time when running alone (noncompetitively) was not significantly different. The running times for boys improved under competitive conditions (where they ran with one other instead of running alone). The running times for girls declined in competitive running conditions as compared to when they ran alone. The gender of one's competitor did not influence the running time for boys, hut it did influence the running time for girls. In the competitive condition, girls' running times were relatively better when they ran against boys as compared with running against other girls. As in other studies, the gender of one's opponent mattered at least to the girls. But this study differed from the movie-viewing studies and the dodge ball study because girls performed at higher levels when paired with boys as compared to when they were paired with girls. Thus, the impact of gender composition is not uniform across studies.
Nonathletic game playing has been a...
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