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This paper examines the different behavior patterns utilized by boys and girls as they form peer relationships and engage in peer play; the nature of their relations with their mothers is also reported. Girls manifested more intense involvement with their mothers, engaged in less peer play than boys, showed lower mood, lower levels of play, less direct aggression, and more controlling play with peers. Furthermore, their mothers handled their requests for contact and aggressive behavior differently than did mothers of boys. Boys were slower to become aware of separateness but once aware, they came to terms with it faster than girls. The boys took longer to pay attention to peers; once peers were focused on, the play moved more quickly to high levels than did the play of the girls. Qualitative findings were supported by quantitative findings—boys showed more contact and more involvement with their peers than did girls. The hypothesis is tentatively offered that the reaction to the awareness of psychological separateness from their mothers is more intense in girls than in boys partly because girls experience this awareness earlier, owing to their more rapid cognitive maturation. The girls' shorter practicing period, however, leaves them with fewer bolstering resources during the emergence of psychological awareness and the ensuing aggression it stimulates. The implications of early peer group experiences for children at different developmental levels are discussed. It is further suggested that certain sex-linked defensive predispositions may result in part from coping with conflicts around separation: Girls turn their aggressive impulses inward and use regression; boys, as others have noted, resort to avoidance, denial, and motor activity.
A study of levels of object permanence as well as self/object differentiation in infants between 11 and 13 months of age lends support to the hypothesis of an earlier awareness of psychological separateness in girls.