Women are traditionally considered the kind and considerate sex, but new research published in Psychological Science has found that women form a negative view of their peers much more quickly than men do.
The findings carried out by Boston’s Emmanuel College and the universities of Harvard and Quebec in Montreal, asked male and female college students to rate their room-mates under different scenarios.
When asked how they would view their room-mates if they one day failed to hand in a paper for them having promised to do so, women were far more likely to be critical than men were. This despite the room-mate having been otherwise totally reliable and trustworthy.
One of the authors of the study, associate professor of psychology Joyce Benenson, concluded that women were tougher on other women because they expected more from their same-sex friendships than men did.
‘Women may weight negative information more heavily, because negative information disrupts the establishment of intimacy, which serves a more important function in same-sex friendships for women than for men.’
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