The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

276 Chapter 8

with directly hurting a relationship, they may

express their distress in more subtle ways. A

study of fourth and fifth graders showed that

girls and boys reported they would respond

to hypothetical conflicts quite differently

(Rose & Asher, 1999). Girls were more likely

to say they would accommodate and com-

promise, whereas boys were more likely to

say they would assert their own interest, walk

away from the situation, and use verbal ag-

gression. Studies of adults show that women

are more likely than men to bring up the sub-

ject of conflict within a same-sex friendship,

but that men are more likely than women to

be direct in terms of how they discuss the con-

flict. (As you will see in Chapter 9,this finding

also holds for romantic relationships.) For

example, men are more likely than women

to express anger to their friends. Women

may be more concerned than men with the

threat that such expressions bring to relation-

ships—which is ironic, because it is women’s

friendships that seem to be less stable than

those of men.

TAKE HOME POINTS

■ Although women’s relationships are closer than those

of men, women may experience more conflict and less

stability in their relationships.

■ Women and men may respond to conflict in different

ways. Women may be more likely than men to confront

conflict in their relationships, but women may be more in-

direct than men in expressing their relationship concerns.

Cross-Sex Friendship

Can men and women be friends? This is the

question taken up by the characters played

by Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in the movie

When Harry Met Sally.Sally told Harry they

Conflict in Friendship

Thus far, I have focused on the positive as-

pects of friendships. But relationships do

not always run smoothly. Do women or men

have more conflict in their relationships?

Despite their greater closeness—and, per-

haps, because of it, girls say that they spend

more time resolving conflicts with friends

(Thomas & Daubman, 2001). It also has been

suggested that females’ friendships are more

fragile than those of males. In a study of sixth

graders making the transition to seventh

grade, males were more likely than females

to maintain the same friends over the tran-

sition (Hardy, Bukowski, & Sippola, 2002).

Seventh grade males and females had the

same number of friends, but proportionally

more of the females’ friends were new and

not the same as those they had in sixth grade.

Even among 7- and 8-year-olds, greater sta-

bility was observed among boys’ than girls’

social networks over the course of a year

(Baines & Blatchford, 2009). In studies of

college students, females’ closest friendship

seems to be of shorter duration than males’

closest friendship (Benenson & Christakos,

2003; Johnson, 2004). In one study, females

were more likely than males to say that their

closest friends had done something to hurt

the friendship, and females had more friend-

ships that had ended compared to males

(Benenson & Christakos, 2003). Even among

older adults, women are less tolerant than

men of friends who betray them, violate their

trust, or fail to confide in them (Felmlee &

Muraco, 2009). It seems that women have

higher expectations of friendship than men.

One reason that there may be more con-

flict in female than male friendship is that fe-

males have more difficulty resolving conflict

compared to males (Benenson & Christakos,

2003). Because females are more concerned

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