BoysToys

[SlowFJH]

We have two boys and a girl (all now teenagers). My daughter was never into dolls and never really liked pink. She was into arts and crafts and loves knitting and sowing. The boys were completely stereotypical (plastic and wooden swords, guns, cars, diggers and tractors, soldiers etc).

We have good feminist friends (with three boys) who banned violent toys for boys. They always gave us the cat's bum face when they visited ours because their boys used to absolutely love playing with my sons' swords and shields. When we went out it for a walk, every stick they found was a gun - despite their parents vocal disapproval.

My friend's boys (now all strapping teenage lads) joke about how their parents banned them from having the toys they always wanted.

We definitely saw differences in toy preferences very early on. My daughter had zero interest in wheeled toys (despite my efforts) but both boys were fascinated by them virtually from day one.

I know my experience is not scientific. But there were some studies several years ago using baby apes (who obviously had not been conditioned by human systems or been exposed to advertising etc). Baby male apes showed a clear preference for mechanical toys over plush toys.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/

I'd love to hear others views on this topic... social conditioning versus biological predispositions.

This review piece suggests testosterone may be as much or more a consequence of human violence as a cause.
And that testosterone may be more involved in competition and dominance than violence per se. But, still, cause or effect?
www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-testosterone-alone-doesnt-cause-violence/
It's fairly old now, so maybe there's more recent evidence?

Whether or not boys are more innately aggressive is nothing to boast about anyway!

Let's suppose they are. That doesn't mean we should leave them to it because we all know that male sexual violence is a huge problem globally. And we also know that culture can either minimise or maximise that innate violence because some cultures are vastly more violent and aggressive than others.

Lweiji that article is an example of the kind of spin that gets put on high-profile studies in this area. For instance, the social dominance stuff is part of the camp of studies that don't replicate well and have been seriously questioned. The article is also pretty inaccurate in places, such as where it claims that castration studies have shown testosterone is "necessary for violence". Oh dear, no...

There is a an interesting theory regarding how socialisation underpins apparent testosterone associations. Since higher testosterone leads to more stereotypically male secondary sexual characteristics - greater muscle mass, more body hair, etc. - much men may be socialised into behaving more aggressively when a particular society considers aggression to be a stereotypically male trait. Or in other words, society condones aggression in the most male-looking men, and so a correlation emerges between circulating testosterone and aggression. The jury is still out on that one, though it is a plausible mechanism. There is some support in that administering testosterone doesn't make individuals more aggressive.

I didn't think it was too bad in that it considered and showed some evidence of testosterone as consequence rather than cause.
But, thanks, I'm not prepared to analyse all the studies now, so happy to learn about it. :)

"Toy shops that have experimented with getting rid of stereotypical boys sections and girls immediately suffer precipitous falls in revenue and annoyed parents as well as children for not being able to find what they're looking for." Of course they did! That much would be obvious. It would have to be an extensive thing done on a large scale over a long period of time (hence me suggesting a couple of years but probably would require longer) to break the conditioning with parents as well as children.

"That doesn't mean we should leave them to it because we all know that male sexual violence is a huge problem globally. And we also know that culture can either minimise or maximise that innate violence because some cultures are vastly more violent and aggressive than others." Absolutely.

I find it surprising that parents wouldn't find toys they wanted. Unless they got tired parent syndrome.
Or the shops behaved like those supermarkets that put things in random places for people to browse and buy things they don't want.
Sections:
Dolls
Action figures
Cars
Puzzles
Superheros
Construction

It's not brain surgery.

The cat's bum face was describing her very obvious judgement of me and the fact that we allowed our children to play with the toys of their own choice. I actually laud my friends stance on pacifism. But unfortunately they weren't able to influence their little boys on this when it came to violent weapons

Ab aside but do parents still try to ban toy guns and swords? I tried it ; it didn't work. We had an armoury of plastic weapons. In reality my son as a child was , and as a man is, as gentle as his father and uncles.

Funnily enough, I did try to shelter ds as much as possible from guns and fighting. But then, I took self defence lessons and enrolled ds on them as well. We do a lot of play fighting now. Although it's mostly towards defending/controlling rather than attacking.

Slow some studies showing that castration did not affect aggression:
Tamarins
Squirrel monkeys
Cichlid fish
Voles - aggression increased in castrated males rather than decreased

There are of course other studies showing different effects, but they don't change the conclusion. If the hypothesis is that testosterone underlies aggressive behaviour, then castration should reduce or remove aggression. This hypothesis has been repeatedly falsified.

There may well be some relationship between testosterone and social behaviour, but it's part of a complex interconnected web of other hormonal interactions and epigenetics that isn't currently well understood. It's definitely not the simplistic case that testosterone = aggression, however.

*My "anecdotal" evidence includes the millenia of human history and animal husbandry.
*
And of course you were there for all these millennia recording everything objectively? I assume you're joking when you call that evidence.

Speaking of animal husbandry, there could be something interesting in domesticated animals responding differently to castration than non-domesticated animals. That is, selective breeding may have favoured the trait of becoming more docile when castrated (with the trait selection being passed down through closely-related breeding animals, not the castrated ones obviously!). Might be worth a proper study.

Geeka
Would you mind if I asked what your degree(s) is / are in? Mine is Biochemistry and Physiology.

I have a degree in Physiology and another one in Business Studies. I work with computers.

I also read.

And yes I reduce the amount of guns/swords etc. You are fighting against the tide though because they do get bought these things for birthday/Xmas etc.

My BIL sat there swearing boys are only interested in swords/guns etc, whilst in the same moment giving my two swords for Xmas. Remind me again why they are interested in this stuff?

Thanks Scallops. The question was directed to Geeka. But it's good to have your input.

I am guessing you took GCSE or O'Level biology? Would you agree that a geldling is likely to behave differently to a stallion?

Yes Geeka, tell SlowFJH whether he can safely dismiss your well-informed posts because you don't have the only degree he will allow as being relevant to this discussion.

Oh I thought we were just giving CVs.

No idea, in answer to your question. Should I know? Not sure what the point of the question is anyway. When I last looked girls and boys weren't geldings or stallions and are also subject to far more social conditioning than horses.

AskBasil
Thanks for the snide rebuke? Do you have an opinion on the effects of testosterone on behaviour?

If it doesn't, why would farmers and breeders even bother going through the hassle, expense and pain of castration?

And that's always going to be the problem with comparing animal studies to human behaviours, scallops. We aren't horses, fish or monkeys. We are subject from birth to very different influences.

I would imagine anyone who had their genitals cut off would behave differently. Surely you aren't suggesting boys should be castrated to make them less violent?

I'm sure I could think of a few better ways to deal with male violence.

Scallops
Your have a degree in Physiology but you have "no idea" if a geldling would be likely to behave differently to a stallion.

Would you like to take a wild guess?

That's a really interesting post Show, and your description of the different ways people interacted with your friend's twins is born out by research. As is your second point about how much things change when children are thrown together with differently socialised children.

Thanks Scallops
I think you know I have not suggested castration for humans. I am citing evidence that testosterone affects behaviour. We know this because, throughout history, we know that male animals with testicles behave differently from those without.

*themselves