bq. We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization. We offer the hypothesis that toy preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and humans.
More is “here”:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921. Yet more confirmation that my son may be a rhesus monkey.
[Via “Matt Yglesias”:http://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/17311055478784000]