This intriguing discovery is one of many signs of deep-rooted behavioral differences between the sexes that scientists are exploring with the latest tools of genetics and neuroscience.
In the monkey experiment, researchers put a variety of toys in front of 44 male and 44 female vervets, a breed of small African monkeys, and measured the amount of time they spent with each object.
Like little boys, some male monkeys moved a toy car along the ground. Like little girls, female monkeys closely inspected a doll's bottom. Males also played with balls while females fancied cooking pots. Both were equally interested in neutral objects such as a picture book and a stuffed dog.
Hmm.... interesting...
8 Comments:
ok...how the hell would a vervet know what a cooking pot does?!
Tue Apr 25, 01:31:27 PM CDT
hahah.. I was wondering that as well.
Tue Apr 25, 01:38:39 PM CDT
So was I. The paper, by the way, is here:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/imagingthebody/Handouts/alexander_2002.pdf
Wed Apr 26, 04:15:34 AM CDT
Oh, and there's something strange about their data. It's not quite as straightforward as they made out. First of all, males contacted all toys more than females, and males contacted "masculine" and "feminine" toys about equally often (the ball, car, and pot each comprised about 20% of their contacts). The real difference was that a higher percentage of female contacts were with "feminine" toys. Apparently, males don't really differentiate between masculine and feminine toys, only females do (though that's not the conclusion of the article). And if you throw out the pot (both because it's nonsensical, and because the males played with it as frequently as they played with the ball and the police car), the only difference is with the doll. You have to wonder exactly what that reflects.
Wed Apr 26, 04:32:08 AM CDT
OK, so independently of Chris, while I was bored, I decided to look up and skim the paper (reading the relevant parts more carefully.)
So, sure enough, the pot was just a pot, and the doll was a friggin human baby. One of the "neutral" toys was a stuffed dog. So why would vervets differentiate between a human baby doll and a dog doll?! Neither is from its own species! So essentially none of the "female" toys had any sort of reasonable meaning, and as Chris said that's the only place where they found a difference.
In their explanation they mentioned color could have something to do with it. They said that females prefer red/pink colors (there was some reason those were relevant to survival.) The doll's skin was pinkish, and the pot happened to be red. (Presumably if it had been blue this result would have disappeared.)
So basically, that explanation admits that the toys have absolutely nothing to do with the result.
Wed Apr 26, 06:46:51 AM CDT
wow... what a lame paper then! hahah
Wed Apr 26, 09:00:08 AM CDT
On the bright side, it's got some cute pictures of baby monkeys playing with toys.
Wed Apr 26, 07:46:25 PM CDT
monkeys always make things funny...as we've all learned from the simpsons.
Wed Apr 26, 07:55:14 PM CDT
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