{"id":158,"date":"2009-05-29T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html"},"modified":"2009-05-29T12:26:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T12:26:00","slug":"why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html","title":{"rendered":"Why girls are so mean to each other"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s what comes naturally, according to the author of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article.cfm?id=bitch-evolved-girls-cruel\">The &#8216;Bitch&#8217; Evolved: Why Girls Are So Cruel to Each Other<\/a>,&#8221; posted at ScientificAmerican.com.  He notes a pattern that is probably not news to most readers:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While teenage boys and young male adults are more prone to engage in direct aggression, which includes physical acts of violence such as hitting, punching and kicking, females, in comparison, exhibit pronounced social aggression &#8230;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Social aggression&#8221; &#8212; ah, what stories lurk behind that coy term. You should read the article for the full story. The author&#8217;s take on things (from the evolutionary perspective &#8212; he&#8217;s a scientist) is that the physical aggression of the boys is their way of competing (with other boys) for the girls, while the social aggression of the girls is their way of undermining the chances of other girls (rivals) with the boys. The difference is that everyone notices when boys fight, but only females notice this incessant social warfare.<\/p>\n<p><p>In a post a couple of years ago, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/mormoninquiry.typepad.com\/mormon_inquiry\/2008\/01\/essential-differences.html\">Essential Differences<\/a>,&#8221; I reviewed a book that took a different perspective on differences in male-female psychology but which agreed that many of the differences are by &#8220;nature&#8221; rather than by &#8220;nurture.&#8221;  That doesn&#8217;t make those different characteristics either good or bad, of course, but it certainly does make one think a little harder about how we structure our institutions (school, work, church) and how we evaluate the conduct of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s what comes naturally, according to the author of &#8220;The &#8216;Bitch&#8217; Evolved: Why Girls Are So Cruel to Each Other,&#8221; posted at ScientificAmerican.com. He notes a pattern that is probably not news to most readers: While teenage boys and young male adults are more prone to engage in direct aggression, which includes physical acts of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why girls are so mean to each other - Mormon Inquiry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why girls are so mean to each other - Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s what comes naturally, according to the author of &#8220;The &#8216;Bitch&#8217; Evolved: Why Girls Are So Cruel to Each Other,&#8221; posted at ScientificAmerican.com. He notes a pattern that is probably not news to most readers: While teenage boys and young male adults are more prone to engage in direct aggression, which includes physical acts of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-29T12:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Banack\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why girls are so mean to each other - Mormon Inquiry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why girls are so mean to each other - Mormon Inquiry","og_description":"It&#8217;s what comes naturally, according to the author of &#8220;The &#8216;Bitch&#8217; Evolved: Why Girls Are So Cruel to Each Other,&#8221; posted at ScientificAmerican.com. He notes a pattern that is probably not news to most readers: While teenage boys and young male adults are more prone to engage in direct aggression, which includes physical acts of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html","og_site_name":"Mormon Inquiry","article_published_time":"2009-05-29T12:26:00+00:00","author":"Dave Banack","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html","name":"Why girls are so mean to each other - Mormon Inquiry","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-29T12:26:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-29T12:26:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/#\/schema\/person\/2f677c4d0aa56d33221bfcb682f43c5f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/05\/why-girls-are-so-mean-to-each.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why girls are so mean to each other"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/","name":"Mormon Inquiry","description":"Mormon News and Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/#\/schema\/person\/2f677c4d0aa56d33221bfcb682f43c5f","name":"Dave Banack","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7ae\/7aebc9e4453d630505d00cebd1d8aa38x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7ae\/7aebc9e4453d630505d00cebd1d8aa38x96.jpg","caption":"Dave Banack"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/author\/dbanack"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}