Young children exhibit sex-biased strategies to obtain resources

Mammalian males’ strategies for obtaining resources have been
well-established and typically depend on direct contests that produce
hierarchies. Although less well-documented, current evidence suggests that
in female philopatric communities, females engage in contests often with
coalition partners who are typically female kin. When kin are not present
however, females of similar age appear more egalitarian and tend to avoid
contests. To examine whether phylogenetically similar sex-biased
strategies to obtain valuable resources occur in humans, we held a contest
for 50 pairs of unrelated, familiar 3-7-year-old children from diverse
backgrounds. We show that the majority of female pairs spontaneously
approached the resources side-by-side then briefly competed to obtain the
resources. In marked contrast, in over half of the male pairs one male
deferred to his partner who then gained unimpeded access to the most
valuable resource. Sex-differentiated strategies however appeared only
with same-sex peers. Results show that already by early childhood, humans
exhibit sex-biased strategies to regulate competition between same-sex
peers. Sex-segregated peer groups however mean that by adulthood, each sex
has practiced strikingly different strategies for obtaining resources from
same-sex peers.