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Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking

The ability to create lasting, trust-based friendships makes it possible for humans to form large and coherent groups. The recent literature on the evolution of sociality and on the network dynamics of human societies suggests that large human groups have a layered structure generated by emotionally...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: David-Barrett, Tamas, Rotkirch, Anna, Carney, James, Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel, Krems, Jaimie A., Townley, Dylan, McDaniell, Elinor, Byrne-Smith, Anna, Dunbar, Robin I. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361571/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25775258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118329
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author David-Barrett, Tamas
Rotkirch, Anna
Carney, James
Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel
Krems, Jaimie A.
Townley, Dylan
McDaniell, Elinor
Byrne-Smith, Anna
Dunbar, Robin I. M.
author_facet David-Barrett, Tamas
Rotkirch, Anna
Carney, James
Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel
Krems, Jaimie A.
Townley, Dylan
McDaniell, Elinor
Byrne-Smith, Anna
Dunbar, Robin I. M.
author_sort David-Barrett, Tamas
collection PubMed
description The ability to create lasting, trust-based friendships makes it possible for humans to form large and coherent groups. The recent literature on the evolution of sociality and on the network dynamics of human societies suggests that large human groups have a layered structure generated by emotionally supported social relationships. There are also gender differences in adult social style which may involve different trade-offs between the quantity and quality of friendships. Although many have suggested that females tend to focus on intimate relations with a few other females, while males build larger, more hierarchical coalitions, the existence of such gender differences is disputed and data from adults is scarce. Here, we present cross-cultural evidence for gender differences in the preference for close friendships. We use a sample of ∼112,000 profile pictures from nine world regions posted on a popular social networking site to show that, in self-selected displays of social relationships, women favour dyadic relations, whereas men favour larger, all-male cliques. These apparently different solutions to quality-quantity trade-offs suggest a universal and fundamental difference in the function of close friendships for the two sexes.
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spelling pubmed-43615712015-03-23 Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking David-Barrett, Tamas Rotkirch, Anna Carney, James Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel Krems, Jaimie A. Townley, Dylan McDaniell, Elinor Byrne-Smith, Anna Dunbar, Robin I. M. PLoS One Research Article The ability to create lasting, trust-based friendships makes it possible for humans to form large and coherent groups. The recent literature on the evolution of sociality and on the network dynamics of human societies suggests that large human groups have a layered structure generated by emotionally supported social relationships. There are also gender differences in adult social style which may involve different trade-offs between the quantity and quality of friendships. Although many have suggested that females tend to focus on intimate relations with a few other females, while males build larger, more hierarchical coalitions, the existence of such gender differences is disputed and data from adults is scarce. Here, we present cross-cultural evidence for gender differences in the preference for close friendships. We use a sample of ∼112,000 profile pictures from nine world regions posted on a popular social networking site to show that, in self-selected displays of social relationships, women favour dyadic relations, whereas men favour larger, all-male cliques. These apparently different solutions to quality-quantity trade-offs suggest a universal and fundamental difference in the function of close friendships for the two sexes. Public Library of Science 2015-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4361571/ /pubmed/25775258 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118329 Text en © 2015 David-Barrett et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
David-Barrett, Tamas
Rotkirch, Anna
Carney, James
Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel
Krems, Jaimie A.
Townley, Dylan
McDaniell, Elinor
Byrne-Smith, Anna
Dunbar, Robin I. M.
Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title_full Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title_fullStr Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title_full_unstemmed Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title_short Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking
title_sort women favour dyadic relationships, but men prefer clubs: cross-cultural evidence from social networking
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361571/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25775258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118329
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