MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > The Unsupervised Children Experiement

The Unsupervised Children Experiement

posted a year ago by Otter (24464)
54 replies | jump to latest

So, some reasearchers put 10 boys and 10 girls into different houses, after giving them cooking lessons and otherwise making sure they had enough survival skills to get through a week without adult care. What do you think happened?

https://www.boredpanda.com/genders-social-experiment-kids-left-unsupervised/?cexp_id=62614&cexp_var=1&_f=featured&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Well... the girls didn't get along perfectly, but they produced regular meals and did the dishes, they held house meetings to settle differences and work out a chore rota, and had group activities to pass the time. The boys completely trashed the house, ate nothing but junk in spite of the cooking lessons they'd had, formed into two gangs and became aggressive, and singled out one boy for bullying.

Conclusions?

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

Boys and girls are the same and gender differences are social constructs.

[–] chilone (17400) a year ago

💥

[–] Kimmie (353) a year ago

Dr. Money's experiments showed tabula rasa was bull though that isn't to say society pushes gender roles

[–] db20db (16572) a year ago

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus 😁

[–] R_Kane (15828) a year ago

And so many boys never become men. Just look around this place.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

Says the doofus that rants and ignores everybody like a crying child.

How are your ‘Katana skills’ coming along tough guy, have you run any Samurai through lately?

[–] db20db (16572) a year ago

Look who's talking about rants. The projecting, blatant hypocrite.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

Says a projecting, lonely failed husband and father who lashes out like a cranky old creep😄

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

Don’t get lost in Uranus as usual.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

Fascinating behavioural experiment. There's a lot to unpack there ( evolutionary psychology ) but of course the Woke Folk will pretend it never happened.

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

Are you kidding? The Wokies LOVE this experiment, or at least the report they got of it, and if you read the comments you'll find it confirms all their assumptions about toxic masculinity and the different ways that boys and girls are raised.

Personally I agree with them so far as this tells us more about how boys and girls are raised than "evolutionary psychology". The girls made themselves comfortable, while the boys admitted they hated living in the trashed space, but made no effort to clean anything up or to enlist the other boys to make a change. Apparently boys still grow up expecting other people to clean up their mess, and girls do not.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

That's one extreme and biased way of looking at it. But you would expect nothing less from the Woke Folk. They are experts at jumping to the conclusions that support their ideology never mind what they ignore and trample underfoot in their haste.

Edit: I have work to do now but I will come back to this later with more to say as it's a very interesting topic. Thanks for posting it.

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

Was this a scientifically controlled research project or a reality TV show? If the latter, you can’t draw any reliable conclusions.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

Neither can you dismiss it with a wave of the hand.

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

What does that even mean?

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

If you can't understand plain English I can't help you.

[–] AndyKing1967 (35061) a year ago

If it’s any consolation, I understood what you meant.

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

I’m not sure making a point by metaphor is really “plain English” but the reason I was confused was because the OP did not provide conclusions. Otter was posting something of interest and asking for conclusions from readers instead. So, I didn’t understand why your post seemed to suggest I was dismissing something never provided.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) a year ago

His response confused me for a bit too.

Basically. He didn't answer your question.
He only responded to the claim in your second sentence.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

Well as responders to this thread we are all in the same boat aren't we. Unless we go to the trouble of reading the linked article and following it up to see if it's legit we can't answer that question. Asking it without bothering to check first serves no purpose other than lazily raising the idea that the experiment was showbiz bullshit. That's what I meant by dismissing it with a wave of the hand.

[–] AndyKing1967 (35061) a year ago

I can’t be bothered to write an answer, could you do one for me? Thanks 👍

[–] [deleted] a year ago

Quasi has it figured out.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

Yeah. Quasi seems like it’s brilliant🙄

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

Before posting my initial comment, I did read the article posted by Otter as well as some collateral internet sources. Channel 4 TV in the UK - which devised and ran the program - was a state-funded public broadcast channel like the BBC only it tried to be more progressive in its programming. So, I’m naturally suspicious that the point of the show was to manufacture a negative image of maleness in favor of girl-power clichés. I’m currently unable to find any proof the program was scientific and conducted with proper controls. That was the basis for my original post that no reliable conclusions could be drawn. So yes, my current belief is the program was reality TV rather than scientific experiment.

I did find other sources talking about how Channel 4 has repeatedly run this type of unsupervised boys vs girls programming over the years. Some of the children of prior shows are now adults in their late 20’s and have complained about how they were treated. The broadcast apparently omitted that some of the girls quit because of abuse from other children in the girl house.

There was also a 2009 article that criticized the Channel 4 show-runners and reported that social services investigated for “child cruelty” and alleged that the involved-children faced "emotional and psychological abuse” in the show. I could not determine what came of the investigation but the government was considering legal action at the time and some of the parents were alleging they felt their kids had been manipulated and mistreated.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) a year ago

I have a background in academia, so I'm generally suspicious of most things, including peer-reviewed research, let alone clickbait news like this. Kudos to you for doing the additional research. At least most popular articles like this reference some actual study that I can go back and dig specifically. But with the link in question, I was like, I don't think there's any substance here at all. Guess you've confirmed it; this isn't really any different than those silly social "experiments" that people conduct on youtube and stuff.

I mean, qualitative research is a thing. But this just looked like another one of those classic "experiments" that aren't really experiments. Just ppl throwing shit in a blender and selling it as they would like to. It's just a form of entertainment, really.

There was also a 2009 article that criticized the Channel 4 show-runners and reported that social services investigated for “child cruelty” and alleged that the involved-children faced "emotional and psychological abuse” in the show. I could not determine what came of the investigation but the government was considering legal action at the time and some of the parents were alleging they felt their kids had been manipulated and mistreated.

Not surprised either. The Stanford Prison experiment, as I recall correctly, is one of the reasons why human subjects research contains the protections that it does now LOL

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

I agree. Otter had an interesting point about how the Twitter commentariat was taking the whole thing as some kind of scientific proof of a bigger meaning about the way boys are being raised. That’s the scary part.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

Well now I'm the one who is confused. If you knew all that why did you make such a general and brief first comment ? I got the impression that ( like me ) you knew nothing about it. Anyway it doesn't really matter I suppose.

I have now done a bit of reading and had a look at a few minutes of the girls video. I don't think it was a complete waste of time but there are a lot of problems with it. They weren't actually alone because there was an adult in the room filming them which had to have affected their behaviour either positively, negatively or both. Also I'm not sure how instructive such an artificial situation can be.

Still the difference between the girls and the boys couldn't have been more stark. Whether you put that down to more nurture than nature or vice versa I guess depends on where you sit on the Woke/Unwoke spectrum.

The boys ( although I didn't watch any of their film ) were completely useless as far as looking after themselves went. The girls were much better at it. But really there is no way of knowing whether that was due to the boys not having to do chores at home and being generally undisciplined as opposed to the girls being used to helping their mothers around the house for instance. Who knows ?

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

My second and third paragraphs above definitely involved further reading after my original post. But, I completely agree with the reactions you came to after your additional reading as well. That’s a great point about how the filming was performed and adults having to be present which introduces an artificial effect. Look, girls and boys are different by nature and the videos clearly show that on display. But I just don’t see any control for variables to ensure reliability and repeatability of the comparison being made. I also suspect that fundamentally, when it comes to 10 and 11 year olds, the traits of leadership and discipline in boys are not even close to the development level of girls (generally speaking). So a better comparison would probably match older boys with the 10 and 11 year old girls.

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

One of the things the Wokies are saying is that boys and girls are still being raised very differently, and that boys are forgiven more and girls are "held to a higher standard". I wouldn't know personally, I dislike children and haven't been a child for 50 years.

Personally, in the endless "nature-vs-nurture" debate I generally trend towards the side of "nurture:, and I really do think that's the case here. Nature may be hormonally charging the boys to be more aggressive, but there's absolutely nothing in our DNA or hormones that effects the ability to cook or to clean up after one's self. That really is how these kids were raised.

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

Feel free to read through the entire story at the link and look up the bona fides of the experiment, I can't be arsed.

[–] R_Kane (15828) a year ago

Possibly a related fun fact from the real estate industry: a single woman is twice as likely to own her own home as a single man. Women make nests. Males fuck off and fuck up, and, unfortunately, father children. I don’t want to call these Bozos “men.”

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

Interesting little factoid, and surprising if true, as single men are probably more likely to be able to afford a home of their own than single women.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) a year ago

At a glance, it's just more pop psychology bullshit. No different from the notorious Stanford prison experiment (which unfortunately has become such an iconic example of the field despite that it added nothing of value).

[–] Quasimodo (16388) a year ago

At a glance in terms of having an opinion is also bullshit. Basically you have just dismissed the whole thing because it doesn't suit your Woke narrative.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

No. It seems like total obvious bullshit.

[–] BeaSouth (2946) a year ago

I concur. See my recent post discussing the same

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

Do you have children?

[–] Kowalski (63764) a year ago

MILLIONS OF THEM...JAMMED INTO A TUBE SOCK.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (73645) a year ago

That one deserves nothing more than self gratification.

[–] DirkOff (320) a year ago

It’s not really a fair experiment.
The girls had the kitchen for familiarity. If the boys had the lounge furnished like an office or workspace they would have been more productive.