ABSTRACT

This study explored gender differences in competition within friendships of emerging adults. In a sample of 118 same and cross-gender friendship dyads, we used a quasi-experimental design to examine how people competed with friends and reacted to this competition when completing a task in both competitive and noncompetitive conditions. Using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling approach to data analyses, we found that in the noncompetitive condition, men and women competed more with same-gender than with cross-gender friends. In the competitive condition, however, both men and women behaved more competitively with male than with female friends. Interestingly, while men reported more stress when competing with cross-gender friends, there was no difference in reported stress for women, regardless of the gender of the friend with whom they were competing. The findings indicate that both the specific and general social context in which competition occurs are important in determining whether gender differences are observed.

摘要

本研究探讨了新兴成年人友谊中竞争中的性别差异。在 118 个相同和跨性别友谊对的样本中，我们使用准实验设计来检查人们在竞争和非竞争条件下完成任务时如何与朋友竞争以及对竞争的反应。使用 Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling 方法进行数据分析，我们发现在非竞争条件下，男性和女性与同性别的竞争比与跨性别的朋友竞争更多。然而，在竞争条件下，男性和女性与男性的竞争行为比与女性朋友的竞争性更强。有趣的是，虽然男性在与跨性别朋友竞争时报告的压力更大，但女性报告的压力没有差异，无论与他们竞争的朋友的性别如何。研究结果表明，发生竞争的特定和一般社会背景对于确定是否观察到性别差异都很重要。