Men may have evolved better 'making up' skills

Men's historical dominance of the workplace may, in part, be because of their ability to reconcile with enemies after conflict, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined the aftermath of same-sex sporting events and found that men spent longer talking, touching or embracing their opponents than women.

These efforts to patch things up ensure the males can then co-operate more successfully in the future.

The authors believe that this trait has been carried down through the years.
Bickering chimps

Researchers have long been puzzled by the abilities of male chimpanzees, who constantly bicker and fight, to put aside their differences and co-operate and work together in struggles for territory with other groups.

Studies showed that male and female chimps acted differently in the aftermath of fights, with males much more inclined to engage in reconciliation behaviours.

Psychologists wondered if the same habits were true for humans - and decided to analyse high-level, same sex sporting competitions for these reconciliation traits.

The team looked at recordings of tennis, table tennis, badminton and boxing involving men and women from 44 countries.

They focused on what happened in the aftermath of these events in terms of physical contacts, such as handshakes and embraces, between opponents.

In society generally, data indicates that physical contact between women is equal to or more frequent than it is among males.

But across the four sports observed, men spent significantly more time touching than females, in what the authors term "post-conflict affiliation".

"What you'll see is that many times females brush their fingers against each other," said lead author Prof Joyce Benenson from Emmanuel College and Harvard University.

"You're expected by the sport to do something but it's so frosty. However, with the males even with a handshake you can see the warmth, the tightness of it.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36969103


More on the link.

What do others think?

The man has obviously never watched women's sports teams after a match or individual players with their opponents. Utter tripe.

Well being as this is looking at individuals and not teams, why would they look at teams, to guage how two people react after sporting conflicts?

I reckon women hold grudges far more than males do as most males don't get involved in day to day gossip and bitchiness.

I've worked in an all-male office in my twenties - I was the receptionist - and it was a truly great place.
Other offices.....Jesus. Woman are competitive and two-faced.

eddie wrote:I reckon women hold grudges far more than males do as most males don't get involved in day to day gossip and bitchiness.

I've worked in an all-male office in my twenties - I was the receptionist - and it was a truly great place.
Other offices.....Jesus. Woman are competitive and two-faced.

Interesting points.
It would be interesting to expand this study onto more sports with individual opponents, anything from chess to a race.
Anything competative between two people

Of course I mean some or maybe most women, not all.

It's just, women can be so nasty about other women. I was like that a bit when I was a teenager and soon realised that this kind of behaviour was detrimental to building friendships. If I like someone I like them and I won't try and bring them down.
If I dislike someone I simply won't speak to them unless it's necessary.

eddie wrote:Of course I mean some or maybe most women, not all.

It's just, women can be so nasty about other women. I was like that a bit when I was a teenager and soon realised that this kind of behaviour was detrimental to building friendships. If I like someone I like them and I won't try and bring them down.
If I dislike someone I simply won't speak to them unless it's necessary.

I agree on age being a factor, pride is another factor, which effcts men more so stubbornly I think. Control is another whether male or female. Grude as you say proprly is a combination of many of the above factors and even more Eddie.
Its funny though, one of my best friends, we both hated each other growing up, which I think was more to do with rivalry, which is why I can see why there is at least some value on this. We were both very competative on sports and on many things. Then he started to date one of my female best friends when in our mid teens. We started to then hang out together and found we had loads in common because we were for once speaking to each other without anything clouding our opinions of each other and our friends to this day.

Yes I've made friends on Facebook with an old classmate and I really didn't like her in school. She's probably one of my favourite old school friends now.

My friend Lisa, who has cancer, we've been best friends since we were 11. We have never argued but often disagreed - we just laugh off our differences or tell eachother to shut up. There's never been rivalry or any competitiveness between us; we've always been a team .

Depends which study you want to believe really:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303145228.htm

Men Have A Harder Time Forgiving Than Women Do


Source:
Case Western Reserve University
Summary:
Forgiveness can be a powerful means to healing, but it does not come naturally for both sexes. Men have a harder time forgiving than women do, according to new research. But that can change if men develop empathy toward an offender by seeing they may also be capable of similar actions. Then the gender gap closes, and men become less vengeful.

Forgiveness can be a powerful means to healing, but it does not come naturally for both sexes. Men have a harder time forgiving than women do, according to Case Western Reserve University psychologist Julie Juola Exline. But that can change if men develop empathy toward an offender by seeing they may also be capable of similar actions. Then the gender gap closes, and men become less vengeful.

In seven forgiveness-related studies Exline conducted between 1998 through 2005 with more than 1,400 college students, gender differences between men and women consistently emerged. When asked to recall offenses they had committed personally, men became less vengeful toward people who had offended them. Women reflecting on personal offenses, and beginning at a lower baseline for vengeance, exhibited no differences in levels of unforgiving. When women had to recall a similar offense in relation to the other's offense, women felt guilty and tended to magnify the other's offense.

"The gender difference is not anything that we predicted. We actually got aggravated, because we kept getting it over and over again in our studies," said Exline. "We kept trying to explain it away, but it kept repeating in the experiments."

The John Templeton Foundation-supported studies used hypothetical situations, actual recalled offenses, individual and group situations and surveys to study the ability to forgive.

Exline said prior studies have shown that at baseline (without any interventions), men tend to be more vengeful than women, who have been taught from childhood to put themselves "in the shoes of others" and empathize with them.

In Exline's study, women who recalled similar offenses of their own did not show much difference in their levels of vengeance, in contrast to men. Women, having been taught from an early age to be more empathetic, lean toward relationship building and do not emphasize the vengeful side of justice to the degree that men do.

The researchers found that people of both genders are more forgiving when they see themselves as capable of committing a similar action to the offender's; it tends to make the offense seem smaller. Seeing capability also increases empathic understanding of the offense and causes people to feel more similar to the offenders. Each of these factors, in turn, predicts more forgiving attitudes.

"Offenses are easier to forgive to the extent that they seem small and understandable and when we see ourselves as similar or close to the offender," she said.

Exline found this ability to identify with the offender and forgive also happens in intergroup conflicts in a study that she related to forgiveness of the 9/11 terrorists.

"When people could envision their own government committing acts similar to those of the terrorists, they were less vengeful," she stressed. "For example, they were less likely to believe that perpetrators should be killed on the spot or given the death penalty, and they were more supportive of negotiations and economic aid."

Exline is the lead author on the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology's article, "Not so Innocent: Does Seeing One's Own Capability for Wrongdoing Predict Forgiveness?" She collaborated with researchers Roy Baumeister and Anne Zell from Florida State University; Amy Kraft from Arizona State; and Charlotte Witvliet from Hope College.

It always depends on what article you read. Why do you think I keep saying that it seems useless to even put up links - someone always finds an article disputing.
It's pretty much why I only write my opinions about stuff.

Oh for goodness sake

You got th first study wrong based on what its purpose is setting out to do and do so again based of now when the second one is based of people bing more vengeful and was 8 years ago.

So the bases for each study has been studied completely different and its no surprise men are more vengeful based off crimes of passion, which is a no brainer. Which goes off on empthay and how we place ourselves in the other shoes. It does not tackle making up skills itself

This study was about making up skills

Different

For goodness sake and this is why people need to read what is actually being stated

Or, to put it just a tad more diplomatically than Didge:

Perhaps "making up" and "forgiveness" are subtly different?

Ben Reilly wrote:Or, to put it just a tad more diplomatically than Didge:

Perhaps "making up" and "forgiveness" are subtly different?

Thwt would be a better way of putting this.