Study: Girls Face Difficult Time Coping With Friend's Disappointing Attitude

Image from futurity.org

People commonly believe that girls have better friendship skills as compared to boys. Recent study by a former doctorate student of Duke University challenges this concept.

The researchers showed 267 4th and 5th grade children some hypothetical stories in which they were asked to imagine that a friend violated a core expectation of friendship  involving a friend’s betrayal, unreliability, or failure to provide support or help.

Results indicated that girls were more troubled by the transgressions and surprisingly endorsed various types of negative relationship interpretations of the friend’s actions. Girls also reported more anger and sadness than did boys.

And to utter amazement girls endorsed revenge goals and aggressive strategies just as much as boys. 

According  to study researchers, findings lead to a more complex view of boys’ and girls’ friendship competencies. 

Read original study here.