The present study examined the emotional responses of 112 dyads of same-sex friends in early and middle childhood as they competed against each other on 3 identical games, enabling each child in the pair to experience 3 outcome conditions: winning, losing, and tying. Emotional reactions were videotaped and rated for degree of enjoyment and discomfort. In addition, following the 3 games, children were individually interviewed and asked to report their levels of happiness regarding winning, losing, and tying. The social context of a dyad is more closely associated with female social interaction which tends to be egalitarian. It was hypothesized that boys' well-documented greater comfort with competition relative to girls would be attenuated in the context of a dyad. Results indicated that boys showed more comfort and enjoyment throughout the competitive process than did girls. However, both boys and girls showed equal levels of comfort and enjoyment for the win and tie outcomes, indicating boys, like girls, were also concerned with doing the same as their friend. A developmental difference was also seen as the children in middle childhood reported less happiness than the kindergarten children when they experienced the win outcome. The results are discussed in terms of the necessity of considering the social context in which competition occurs when investigating gender differences in competition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.19595 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Linders, Lisa M. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002022461, Theses scanned by McGill Library. |
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