And from Yahoo we have this…
I have never thought women held an exclusive on “mean.”
[quote]Study: Meanness in Girls Can Start at 3
Fri May 6, 8:33 PM ET
SALT LAKE CITY - Meanness in girls can start when they still are toddlers, a Brigham Young University study found. It found that girls as young as 3 or 4 will use manipulation and peer pressure to get what they want.
“It could range from leaving someone out to telling their friends not to play with someone to saying, ‘I’m not going to invite you to my birthday party,’” said Craig Hart, study co-author and professor of marriage, family and human development at BYU. “Some kids are really adept at being mean and nasty.”
They regularly exclude others and threaten to withdraw friendship when they don’t get their way.
The “mean girls” are highly liked by some and strongly disliked by others. They are socially skilled and popular but can be manipulative and subversive if necessary. They are feared as well as respected.
The study is the first to link relational aggression and social status in preschoolers. It appears in the current issue of the journal Early Education and Development. David Nelson and Clyde Robinson of BYU are the other authors.
Researchers have long known that adolescents, particularly girls, engage in this sort of behavior, called relational aggression, to maintain their social status.b[/b] story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … mean_girls[/quote]
Well, thank you. I needed a professor of marriage, family and human development to tell me that. I believe she’s doing a follow up study to see whether some adolescents rebel against their parents. :loco:
Actually, I saw something recently which claimed that children who lie at a young age are more intelligent than their truthful counterparts. It’s a sign that they’ve worked out that grown ups are not omniscient.
If the lies were more like stories I might tend to believe that. Some kids make up some very tall tales that I find interesting albeit hard to believe, but it does show a lot of creativity and smarts.
Other kids just look at you and say “I didn’t do it.” When they clearly did, because I SAW YOU LEO!! oh sorry…where did that come from?
If the lies were more like stories I might tend to believe that. Some kids make up some very tall tales that I find interesting albeit hard to believe, but it does show a lot of creativity and smarts.[/quote]
Well, the example they showed was leaving a kid sitting in a room and telling him not to look at the toy behind him. Come back 20 seconds later and ask if he looked at the toy … i.e. a lie where it would be reasonable for the kid to think he could get away with it.
Of course, once you’ve worked out that lying CAN work, the next step is working out when it DOES work. So perhaps he’s not being stupid there - he’s just seeing how stupid you are.
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Of course, once you’ve worked out that lying CAN work, the next step is working out when it DOES work. So perhaps he’s not being stupid there - he’s just seeing how stupid you are. [/quote]
I don’t think that is really the case though. A lot of kids would automatically assume they’ve done something wrong, and deny anything right from the beginning. Thanks Mom and Dad, now the kid thinks every time I ask him a question (not in class) he thinks he’s done something wrong. Me, upon seeing Leo reading a book: “What book are you reading?” Leo: “Nothing.” Closing it and putting it behind his back.
In any event though, the best lies are never discovered. But it takes much willpower to do that.
I think the real value in the study is not in that the kids are shown to be being mean, but that there is an apparent link between the sort of discipline styles parents use and the behavior the children exhibit as a result. That is also a fairly obvious statement, but it’s good to have research on paper to back it up.
So, perhaps the smartest kids are the ones who always appear to be telling the truth. Of course, they’re lying too, but we just never figure that out…[/quote]
What I find interesting is when a kid comes up with a really odd story, no one will believe him/her. It’s a shame really. The bad kids make it hard on everybody. If there weren’t so many liars, it would be easier to believe.
[quote]Actually, I saw something recently which claimed that children who lie at a young age are more intelligent than their truthful counterparts. It’s a sign that they’ve worked out that grown ups are not omniscient.[/quote]Sounds about right. Sure is fitting for many students I taught.(boys and girls) Some back up on paper would substantiate that statement as mentioned in the above post. It’s the best way to prove a truth believed to be wrong as well. Unfortunetly some kids have very limited ways to make a right out of their true wrongs. Kids are kids, adults are adults and “I don’t wanna to grow up.”
I just wanted to point out that lying in young children is not intrinsically “bad”. It is a natural progression when they discover you and they are not the same person after all (which probably accounts for the intelligence theory). And some kids really can’t tell truth from fiction very well, which is why they make bad trial witnesses. Lying with actual intent to deceive/avoid punishment, etc. is very different from wishful thinking or an overactive imagination which a lot of “good” kids still have. Of course, after a certain age, consistent lying becomes a problem.
Four years with preschoolers has provided all the research I need to know this is true for boys as well. I had a three-year-old boy once upon a time who was the leader of the class and lead the other children to pick on an older, overweight four-year-old by making the other kids pretend to fight him like he was a monster.
No, I would say if I had a child, that MYYYY child is just astute.And would begin to prepare him/.her for a life in government, or the corp. world. A different sort of Head Start program
These studies in child devolopment have shown that while boys often use physical acts of aggression against their peers to gain power, girls often use relational aggression. Actually for a long time no research was done on girls and aggression. It wasn’t until the mid-90’s that psychologist began to study agression in girls. Many studies found that being a victim of relational aggression can be even more damaging to a child’s psyche than acts of physical violence.
So yeah, girls can be mean. And by the way, these studies aren’t measuring girls being mean to boys. They are showing how girls relate to each another.
If meanness is a notable trait of girls, it should make sense evolutionarily. To ensure the future success of her DNA, a young girl’s behavior should be that which best prepares her to land a real stud when she’s older and hold on to him for life (even as she cheats on him occasionally, but only with other studly types).
Not having thought it through too carefully, I’d reckon that this ‘relational aggression’ might fit the bill. Men, especially the stud types, do seem to get easily smitten with bitchy manipulative women even though they claim and try not to. Maybe.
I think it’s really interesting that such research is being undertaken. I wish I’d gone into that field. It sounds pretty funny. Those Mormons… always looking for the archetypal family.
From my kindy teaching experience, I’d say most any group of three or more young girls experiment with this sort of behavior a little bit. During unstructured play time, while the boys tumble in the corners, the girls always sit in the middle of the room forming alliances and agreements related to whatever toy they are playing with at the time.
Nehh, don’t we know this already…? I mean, back in kindergarten 6 or 7 years (for me…) ago…you could see little girls threatening to not be somebody’s friend if they didn’t do what they wanted you to do.
Oddly enough, that girl is really nice now though.
…don’t mind me.
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But it takes much willpower to do that.