Boy Monkeys Prefer “Boy” Toys

Jesse | Published on Sep 3, 2009

A Rhesus monkey playing with a ball

When we were once little kids, we humans tended to choose playthings based on our gender. Normally, boys deal with robots, toy trucks and war toys, whereas, girls prefer playing with Barbie dolls or cuddly stuffed animals. We have this propensity because of several factors such as cues we’ve picked up from our parents, peer group, or from various media like the TV.

But did you know that there is a study in the United States suggesting that when it comes to choosing between toy trucks and cuddly stuffed animals, chromosomes found in our body might be able to tell a difference?

The concept that children’s preference in toys might be genetically determined has long been pronounced by psychologists as unscientific, sexist or both. But in spite of that, some researchers still didn’t give up their notion which is in contrary to that of the psychologists. One of them is Kim Wallen of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

She, together with her team of scientists, decided to conduct a study about it. However this time, the participants were not humans but another type of primates – rhesus monkeys, a well-known Old World species found in Asia.

Wallen’s team decided to offer typical “male” and “female” playthings to the monkeys to see if preferences are associated with sex. Surprisingly, they did. The 11 male monkeys headed straight for the wheeled toys, such as dump trucks. Meanwhile, the 23 females were more curious, and played with both the wheeled toys and plush toys.

“They are not subject to advertising. They are not subject to parental encouragement, they are not subject to peer chastisement,” Wallen said, contending that even in monkeys, preferences on a certain thing, other than cues we’ve got from the others, are highly based upon the individual’s sex.

Green Vervet Monkey (close relative)

The results from Wallen’s team support an earlier study at Texas A&M University, with green vervet monkeys as participants, which also showed a definite preference among male monkeys for “masculine” playthings.

Source: Discovery.com