| Abstract: | Reports of sex differences in cooperative and competitive attitudes have assumed that these constructs are the same for boys and girls. Previous findings that the attitudinal correlates of these attitudes are different at different grade levels suggest that there might be sex differences in the attitudinal patterns in which cooperation and competition are embedded. In this study, subscales of the Minnesota School Affect Assessment were administered to a systematic sample of 2,432 2nd–12th graders. Attitudes toward cooperation and competition in school were correlated with other school attitudes separately for males and females. Significant sex differences were found in correlation patterns at all grade levels. Males progressively lost completely the negativistic correlates that competition had in lower grades, whereas females retained some. In senior high school, females finally showed positive correlations of competition with self-worth and internal motivation, whereas males almost lost the correlation between cooperation and self-worth. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
