sex

Males and Females, Are We Really That Socially Different? An Exploration of Same-Sex Friendship Dynamics

Shirley Yao, Sabrina Meyn, Viktoria Hovhannisyan

The friendship dynamics that males and females form with the same-sex differ in how they bond homosocially: either vertical or horizontal. Homosocial bonds are those that are non-romantic social bonds between those of the same-sex. Historically, these two types of homosocialities are used to regulate how people perform gender. Vertical homosociality, also known as hierarchical homosociality, is relationally tied to males, and horizontal homosociality with females. Vertical is centered on building power socially, whilst horizontal captures non-profitable aspects of social bonds. Research has shown that heterosexual males tend to be hypersensitive to their sexuality being misinterpreted in homosocial contexts, whilst females are presumed not to be. This has been previously attributed to female homosocial bonds being defined as desexualized relations and their intimate relations as being friendly or as a sexual display for the heterosexual male gaze. However, in the literature there is room to explore female’s friendship and social dynamics and obtain updated information on male homosocial friendship dynamics by comparison. Using a comprehensive questionnaire that aimed to gather data on participant’s homosocial friendship dynamics, we found that both females and males exercise homosociality similarly.

*Disclaimer: Gender and sex are not interchangeable terms, as gender refers to something people do or perform socially, and sex is what you are biologically. The participants in this study identified their sex as either being male or female.

Introduction and Background

From “bros” to “babes,” males and females tend to have different friendship dynamics. The topics of sex, friendships, and homosociality has been widely studied. Homosociality is a phenomenon between people of the same-sex with a “nonsexual attraction” to each other (Bird, 1996, p. 121). Through a study to determine the type of homosociality practiced between males and females, we aim to better understand the friendship dynamics across sex. Specifically, our target population includes straight males and straight females in college who form close-knit homosocial circles, tracking homosocial situations where homosexual intentions may be incorrectly perceived within friendships.

Historically, homosociality comes in two strokes: vertical (hierarchical) and horizontal. Vertical homosociality is “a means of strengthening power and of creating close homosocial bonds to maintain and defend hegemony” and as a result, it has strong ties with hegemonic masculinity (Hammarén & Johansson, 2014, p. 1,5). Hegemony is related to structural social power dynamics. Hegemonic masculinity is built on an archaic conception of masculinity rooted in institutionalized practices that value males and devalue females (Bird, 1996, p. 1-2, Rose, 1985, p. 63-4). Horizontal homosociality is defined as being built on “emotional closeness, intimacy, and a nonprofitable form of friendship” and has strong ties to female homosociality (Hammarén & Johansson, 2014, p. 1,5). Most studies conducted that explore homosociality are focused on heterosexual males. There is little research on female homosociality, especially those that do not have a heteronormative foundation (Sanders, 2015, p. 887). In addition, data on male homosociality is outdated. Rose (1985) performed a study on cross-sex and same-sex preferences in homosocial bonds (p. 83). It was found that males and females have the same expectations in same-sex friendships, while expecting less help and loyalty in cross-sex or heterosocial friendships (Rose, 1985, p. 63). Friendship formation and maintenance were found to differ for same-sex and cross-sex friendships between the sexes as well (Rose, 1985, p. 63). Bird (1996) claims gender is relational – where a person will perform gender in accordance with either vertical or horizontal homosociality (p. 122). Bird (1996) also identified how hegemonically masculine ideals are perceived as being the socially ideal form of masculinity (celebrates emotional detachment, competition, and the sexual objectification of females) (p. 121). Studies have found that homosexual people can have their own language, especially specific vocabulary words (Kulick, 2000, p. 243). We will review data on the usage of homosexually charged nicknames between the sexes in results.

This study is a step towards more representational and up-to-date data on both male and female homosocial tendencies and in particular, friendship dynamics. Based on previous research, the foreground expectation is for the data to show that gender is relational, where, a person’s sex will predict the type of homosociality present in their friendship dynamics. In particular, males will overcompensate for their fear of being perceived incorrectly as having homosexual intentions, projecting an overly masculine persona and using linguistic features to create social distance. Comparatively, females will embrace the idea of receiving incorrect perceptions. They will prioritize emotional closeness in their friendships, and exhibit no particular linguistic behaviors different from their everyday conversations.

Methods

To test our hypothesis we gathered data from 16 college students, ages 17 to 25, which included 8 females and 8 males, 14 straight and 2 bisexual. We asked them to fill out a questionnaire that was designed to test their beliefs, lexicon, and conversational content as it relates to their homosocial friendships. We used multiple choice, short answer, checking boxes, and rating comfort levels on Google Forms to collect information from anonymous participants. The survey included five parts aiming to gather: biographical information, ideological beliefs (to test for horizontal or vertical beliefs), short answer questions directed towards the conversational content, a section directed towards investigating a person’s lexicon to see what phrases and nicknames are used to create or lessen social distance and a section directed towards investigating reactions to inappropriate/appropriate language use or behavior. Vertical answers emphasize emotional detachment, sexual objectification of females, sport, competition, and deny horizontal things such as gossip, feelings, etc.

Examples – An example of a question that was asked is the following: “friendships are important to my social standing” this question was intended to answer with either “yes” or “no.” A yes or affirmative to a vertically loaded question would result in adding a point to a person’s vertical homosociality score, and a negative would add a point to a person’s horizontal homosociality score, and vice versa for horizontally loaded questions. Examples of horizontally loaded questions would be: “being emotionally close to my friends is important to me” or “intimacy is important to my friendships.” In the short answer sections, horizontally loaded answers would receive a point per question, and same for vertically loaded responses. Comfortability scores over 5 for a particular type of question would result in a point being added as well depending on the question category.

Results and Analysis

Results

DEMOGRAPHICS

16 participants ages 17 to 25, 8 female, 8 male, 14 Straight, 2 Bisexual

IDEOLOGICAL

We found that both females and males are ideologically more horizontally homosocial leaning.

Examples of questions included: if friendships were important to social standing, maintaining the patriarchy, if it was acceptable to use friends as a means to an end, if they observed people in their homosocial circles discuss, disparage, or use the opposite sex to gain social status, as well as if they individually believed it was acceptable to do so. About ½ of participants observed this happen, but ¾ of the responses said they felt it was unacceptable. Surprisingly, over 90% said it was false that friends should not have romantic feelings for one another and friends should not have feelings in general for each other, and that it was true that being emotionally close was important.

Figure 1: Ideological Homosociality Scores: Comparing Males and Females

Table 1: Ideological Homosociality Scores- Ratio of Vertical Scores to Horizontal Scores

FEAR OF MISINTERPRETATION OF SEXUALITY

Ideologically speaking, 25% of the males surveyed are afraid of their sexuality being misinterpreted, and 12.5% of females are afraid of their sexuality being misinterpreted.

Figure 3: Fear of Misinterpretation of Sexuality by Females

FRIENDSHIP FORMATION AND MAINTENANCE

Similar to the results of the Rose study, friendship formation and maintenance differed between the sexes. The homosociality scores for both males and females were overwhelmingly more horizontally leaning, but females were approximately 85.36% more horizontally homosocial than males.

Table 2: Friendship Formation and Maintenance Homosociality Scores – Ratio of Vertical Scores to Horizontal Scores

NICKNAMES

Although a percentage of males and females who are afraid of their sexuality being misinterpreted, we found females use more homosexually charged nicknames and pet names than males by approximately 39.13%.

Table 3: Usage of Homosexually Charged Nicknames: Comparing Males and Females

CONVERSATIONS (appropriate vs. inappropriate topics)

We found that both females and males are a combination of vertical and horizontal, and marginally lean one way or the other.

Examples – For conversations participants rated their comfortability and indicated if they did talk about a range of topics with their same-sex friends that ranged from: school, business, social status, sexual activities, sexual conquests or accomplishments, to test for vertical homosociality, to topics which do not make for a profitable exchange like gossip, feelings, saying “I love you,” worries, morals, etc. We also asked about topics they do not think are acceptable to be discussed with their same-sex friends and the responses ranged from nothing being off limits, to family drama, insecurities, sexual life, politics, religion, weight, romantic relationships, etc.

Figure 6: Conversations Homosociality Scores: Comparing Males and Females

Table 4: Conversation Homosociality Scores – Ratio of Vertical Scores to Horizontal Scores

REACTIONS (to inappropriate topics and/or actions)

Here we were looking for their reactions to various topics and actions that would lead to a misinterpretation of their sexuality. We found that both males and females have horizontal homosocial tendencies in reaction to behavior which may be perceived as having homosexual intentions.

Examples – We asked participants to rate comfortability, and express what they might be met with or observe if any of the following topics or actions would come up: compliments, hugging, kissing friends, cuddling with friends, holding hands, platonic feelings for same-sex friend, romantic feelings for same-sex friend, actions/words which are perceived as having homosexual undertones, actions/words which may be perceived as having homosexual undertones, saying “I love you” to your same-sex friend.

Figure 7: Reactions (to inappropriate topics/actions) Homosociality Scores: Comparing Males and Females

Table 5: Reactions (to inappropriate topics/actions) Homosociality Scores – Ratio of Vertical Scores to Horizontal Scores

OVERALL MALE HOMOSOCIALITY SCORES

The majority of our male participants had horizontally leaning homosociality scores, while only one male participant was more vertical leaning by 1pt (approximately 0.037%).

Figure 8: Homosociality Scores: Comparing Male Participants

OVERALL FEMALE HOMOSOCIALITY SCORES

All of our female participants scored more horizontally leaning homosociality scores.

Figure 9: Homosociality Scores: Comparing Female Participants

OVERALL HOMOSOCIALITY SCORE COMPARISON: MALES VS. FEMALES

Overall, females and males were found to be overwhelmingly horizontally leaning, with a combination of vertical and horizontal homosocial tendencies and beliefs. Their overall vertical scores are also similar, with females scoring approximately 8.4% more vertical than males, and 6.7% more horizontal than males, with a minimal overall margin of difference of 0.71.

Figure 10: Homosociality Scores: Comparing Males and Females

Table 6: Males and Females Overall Homosociality Scores – Ratio of Vertical Scores to Horizontal Scores

Our results show that both females and males have a combination of vertical and horizontal homosocial tendencies and beliefs, with an overwhelming slant towards horizontal homosociality. What this means is that the homosocial tendencies of females and males are similar. Since they were found to be a combination, this means that females and males don’t just correspond to one kind of homosociality over the other. This disproves the idea that gender and homosociality are strictly relational since males did not score strictly vertically, and females did not score strictly horizontally.

Discussion and Conclusion

Discussion

While sex does not determine the type of homosocial friendship present, it plays a factor in understanding different interactions within homosocial friendships. With no significant statistical difference between vertical and horizontal scores, gender is overall not relational, meaning horizontal and vertical homosociality scores do not reflect the predicted homosociality of males and females. In fact, both sexes have a relatively higher horizontal score compared to their vertical scores in total.

However, when looking into each of the four topics individually, observations about the different friendship dynamics arise – with areas worthy of further exploration. The most distinct difference occurs in the area of friendship formation and maintenance. With ratio score comparisons of 70.73 and 22.36, males and females are strikingly different when it comes to building and sustaining homosocial friendships. Comparatively, females are more likely to form and maintain friendships horizontally than males – using intimacy and closeness as their powers to reach out and establish connections. In the real world, males tend to strengthen relationships by participating in activities together, and females tend to do so by sharing feelings and talking about various things. Linguistically, females are also more likely to use linguistic features that are indicative of intimacy and closeness, reflecting horizontal homosociality through their everyday conversations. Through the use of specific lexicon such as the homosexually charged pet names of “sugar mama” and “sugar baby,” females are unafraid – and even embrace – the idea of their sexuality being incorrectly perceived.

Ideologically speaking, most males and females have similar ideological beliefs about homosocial friendships, with nearly identical ratios between their ideological vertical and horizontal scores. As the sample is composed of college and high school students, it is understandable for many to have a similar group mindset to find social circles and fit in. The COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated the isolation anxiety for many to feel eager to belong. The societal norm also values honesty and friendships and paints betrayals and loneliness as traits that should be avoided. The topic of conversational content also reveals similarity between males and females. Though females have lower vertical and horizontal scores compared to those of males respectively, the ratio between the two is still similar across sex, meaning males and females have similar shares of vertical and horizontal conversations. Looking into conversational content linguistically, many responses include talking about school and friends, regardless of gender, mainly because of the social setting within colleges to define conversational topics. It is interesting to note that females are more likely to talk about males, whereas males have a higher tendency to talk about careers and the future – further demonstrating the foundation of female homosexuality to be rooted on the exchange of intimate facts and truth compared to male homosexuality.

Last but not least, the examination of reactions to incorrect perceptions between males and females also prompt similar homosociality scores. However, as predicted, males are relatively more likely to be afraid of receiving incorrect perceptions regarding sexuality. Interestingly, 12.5% of the females surveyed are afraid of being perceived incorrectly in terms of sexuality – a higher percentage than expected. While reasons behind this relatively surprising number need further investigation, it is worth noting that the sample is small and localized.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the study establishes a step towards understanding both male and female homosociality. Despite its limited participant tool, the small localized sample creates an in-depth and cohesive look under a college setting, recognizing specific characteristics and linguistic features in context to better understand homosocial friendship dynamics. Furthermore, the four particular areas reflect the fundamental concepts between vertical and horizontal homosociality. For example, females are more likely to form friendships horizontally and use lexicon reflective of emotional closeness compared to males, providing specific observations worthy of analyzing between the two genders.

The study needs further investigations to capture the essence of homosociality between sexes. One future direction is to acquire larger sample sizes for a more holistic understanding of homosocial friendship dynamics. It includes surveying a much bigger and more inclusive target population. Expanding the survey pool to more college participants can help further research the underlying patterns that a smaller sample size may fail to show. A more diverse target population should also be considered, such as surveying varying ages and occupations across different generations of gender. Different age groups may prompt different responses to incorrect perceptions of sexuality, taking into consideration the context under which they grew up and the societal ideals toward homosexuality at that time. Both of these paths of research are worth exploring for the future, whether to dig deep into the college setting or to grow to a broader population.

Another future direction of this research is to expand the sexuality of the pool of participants. This research aimed to study heterosexual male and female participants within homosocial friend groups. However, studying homosexual males versus heterosexual males or homosexual females versus heterosexual females can lead to new directions. When participants are all of one sexuality within a homosocial friend group, how would their responses differ compared to when participants are of varying sexualities? Would those in friend groups with varying sexualities be comparatively more accepting and inclusive? Would more lexicon related to homosexuality be used without fear? These questions open up new paths of research, further honing down on the topic of sexuality in terms of homosociality and sex. Whether it’s the “bros” or the “babes,” male and female homosocial friendship dynamics are densely packed. While the overall homosocial friendship dynamics for males and females in this study reveal no significant difference, their relative scores and specific responses establish the distinction between how males and females perceive, build and maintain intimacy linguistically.

References

BIRD, S. R. (1996). Welcome to the Men’s Club: Homosociality and the Maintenance of Hegemonic Masculinity. Gender & Society, 10(2), 120–132. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124396010002002

Hammarén, N., & Johansson, T. (2014). Homosociality: In Between Power and Intimacy. SAGE Open, 4(1), 215824401351805–. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013518057

Kulick, D. (2000). GAY AND LESBIAN LANGUAGE. Annual Review of Anthropology, 29(1), 243–285. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243

Rose, S. M. (1985). Same- and cross-sex friendships and the psychology of homosociality. Sex Roles, 12(1-2), 63–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288037

Sanders, K. (2015). Mean girls, homosociality and football: an education on social and power dynamics between girls and women. Gender and Education, 27(7), 887–908. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2015.1096921

Friendship, gender, Homosociality, sex

Love at First Site? The Impact of Medium and Sex on Flirting Behavior

Sociolinguistics

Christian Bury, Maddy, Valerie Beketava, Marissa Schulner, Luming Zhou

Smiling at the cute cashier, batting your eyes at your work-crush, or even strutting up to greet an attractive stranger at the bar, whether Dr. Love himself, or merely an average joe looking to land a date, we’re all aware of the tried-and-true signs of flirting. It’s with this familiarity in mind, that the recent emergence of social media and popular dating apps have revolutionized these age-old flirting techniques, reimagining themselves in the form of risqué DM’s and overly animated texts featuring the all too infamous winky face emoji. Biological sex has long stood as the primary element of influence within flirting behavior, but with the prevalence of today’s digital technology, the actual medium of such communication has been introduced as yet another important factor regarding one’s approach to flirting. Despite this being the case, a few features of flirting remain ubiquitous across both face-to-face and virtual mediums regardless of biological sex: the use of compliments and exaggerated reactions. With this in mind, the following article lays-out and reflects on the aforementioned features of flirting, shedding light on how differences among sex and medium impact flirting behavior, perception, and tendencies.

Introduction

Before diving into all the nitty-gritty details of these recent observations, it is important that we introduce the background of such research, and more specifically, the features of flirting we will be paying special attention to. With longstanding studies on flirting and communication, it doesn’t take an astrophysicist to know that flirting relies heavily on non-verbal signals and exaggerated reactions such as laughing, smiling, looking someone in the eye for a significant period, and winking (Eckert & McConnell, 2003). For this exact reason, more contemporary research has concluded that without the traditional non-verbal signals of face-to-face communication, virtual flirting tends to rely on emojis, capitalization, and punctuation, as substitutes for conveying exaggerated excitement (Whitty, 2004). Our study of “exaggerated reactions” refers to the act of responding over-enthusiastically while flirting, usually laughing, smiling, or speaking louder and faster to signal interest and excitement. More specifically, this feature may take form in face-to-face contexts by giggling at an attractive person’s joke as if it’s way funnier than it actually is, or appear in a virtual sense, with the excessive use of emojis, punctuation, and capitalization, while texting “HAHAHA…waaaaiitt, I LOOOOVE that!!!!” Likewise, in regard to modern analysis surrounding the use of compliments between men and women, it’s been widely observed that women are more likely to both give out and accept compliments, while men are more likely to deflect and misread compliments when flirting (Tannen, 1990). From this standpoint, we’ve chosen to further examine such behavior, particularly researching what we’ve classified as “direct and risque compliments.” This feature refers to the act of essentially cutting straight to the point and making a flirtatious or sexually suggestive compliment while flirting. Most notably, such behavior may be observed within the likes of face-to-face flirting by telling someone “you’re gorgeous,” or appear in a virtual context while sliding into someone’s DM’s to say “you’re super hot, can I get your snap?” Now at this point, you may be thinking so what’s the big deal? Well, by taking these features into account, we’ve developed exciting new insight on the medium and types of compliments preferred by men and women, in addition to which medium is perceived to involve more exaggerated reactions, as well as direct and risqué compliments. We predict that flirting face-to-face is the preferred medium of both men and women, being perceived as more sincere, and therefore, more effective. Moreover, we also expect to find that flirting virtually tends to involve more direct and risqué compliments, as well as exaggerated reactions.

Methods

With regards to the methodology of such research, we decided to approach this study with three separate phases and means of collecting data. First and foremost, we developed a multiple choice google survey, gathering responses from 27 male and 27 female UCLA students. In particular, this survey gauged the tendencies and perceptions, as well as the use of compliments and exaggerated responses by men and women when flirting face-to-face and/or virtually. Next, we cross compared our survey results with 14 anonymously submitted screenshots of flirting over Tinder, Instagram DM’s, and Text messages, effectively countering the potential survey bias of our data by presenting more “real-world” flirting behavior in practice. Lastly, we gathered and analyzed an assortment of media clips containing flirting scenes from various movies and shows, once again cross referencing such examples with our survey data and screenshots of virtual flirting to develop more comprehensive results.

Results and Analysis

Moving on to the results and analysis of this three-phase approach to data collection, we see that our survey results indicate that men and women are strikingly similar when it comes to their perception and use of really any notable feature and medium of flirting. In this case, our survey data shows that the only notable disparity between sex appears over which medium is more likely to contain exaggerated reactions, with men saying that virtual flirting contains more exaggerated reactions, while women reported the contrary, highlighting the exaggerated reactions of face-to-face flirting instead (as seen in Graph #5). Beyond this minor disagreement, both men and women said that face-to-face was their preferred flirting medium (Graph #1), agreeing that it’s more sincere (Graph #2), and therefore, more effective (Graph #3), while also perceiving that virtual flirting tends to involve far more direct and risqué compliments (Graph #4).

Taking this into account, our analysis of the virtual flirting screenshots showed that in many cases people will say things online that they may not say in person (Screenshot #1 and #2). This observation carries over similarly to an apparently high volume of exaggerated messages and responses (Screenshot #2 and #3). As noted earlier, this behavior likely stands as a means of compensating for the lack of traditional nonverbal flirting signals missing from virtual mediums. Lastly, our examination of media clips focused mainly on scenes from the films “Back to the Future”, “Crazy, Stupid, Love”, and “The Departed” (see links below).

“Back to the Future” Flirting Scene

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” Flirting Scene

“The Departed” Flirting Scene

In each case, all three clips displayed an exchange of compliments, usually coming from the man initially, as well as indications of exaggerated reactions, usually occurring in the form of giddy laughter, smiling, and louder, faster speech.

Discussion and Conclusions

Relying on surveys, research, and media analysis we draw several conclusions regarding flirting behaviors among young adults. By analyzing our survey results we can conclude that flirting face-to-face is the preferred medium of both men and women. This came as no surprise to us but was very interesting to analyze the many possible reasons and explanations that resulted in this conclusion. One reason for this result is that both genders indicated that they found flirting in person to be perceived as more sincere, effective, and the most time effective method of getting to know a person they are attracted to. Virtual flirting was shown to be more prone to direct and risqué communication that can often be misinterpreted whereas in-person can be seen to show much more clear and precise expression of intentions. The more playful and sincere compliments observed through in-person flirting is preferred for both men and women over the more scandalous and risqué ones prevalent among virtual flirting. As we previously assumed, virtual flirting prompts much more exaggerated and animated reactions than in-person. We assume that this exaggerated behavior is used as an attempt to combat the non-verbal cues we get when flirting in person. These non-verbal cues include smiling, touching, laughing, as well as other micro-expressions we observe when you are attracted to another person. Those who are more introverted and less confrontational may prefer online flirting as their preferred medium as there is much less physical embarrassment when a flirting tactic fails to elicit the desired response. For an online flirting medium such as Tinder, where you most likely have not met the person, you are talking to and, the person may believe they have to come off strong to provoke a response and make an impression among a much larger pool of potential partners. While our survey did compare results among both men and women, our analysis found that the medium, rather than sex, has a much larger impact on the use and perception of compliments and exaggerated response when flirting. Overall, most of our research data and analysis confirmed our hypothesis that young adults prefer face-to-face over online flirting, leaving the door open for further insight that could promote future research on this topic.

References

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York, NY: Morrow.

Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). Language and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holmes, J. (1988). Paying compliments: A sex-preferential politeness strategy. Journal of Pragmatics, 12(4), 445–465. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(88)90005-7

Smith, J. (2014). The Perceived Impact of Online Versus Offline Flirting on Romantic Relationships . (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter and Thomas R. Wagner.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.Apr 2018.229-233.http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.0608

Whitty, M.T. (2004). Cyber-flirting: An examination of men’s and women’s flirting behaviour both offline and on the Internet. Behaviour Change, 21(2), 115-126

flirting, gender, impact, medium, sex, virtual