THE FATHER TREATS DAUGHTERS DIFFERENTLY THAN SONS

Is it true that girls are the parents' right eye, or instead, they have a predilection for the boy? Researchers from Emory University (Atlanta, United States) have wanted to answer these questions for which they conducted a study based on the behavior of man towards his sons and young daughters. They took into account how attentive they are with theirs, the type of language they use and how they interact with each other.

To do this they combined brain studies of parents with behavioral data collected and the conclusion published in the scientific journal Behavioral Neuroscience is blunt: the gender of the children influences the responses of the father, or put another way, the father treats the daughters differently than the sons.

"When a girl screams or asks for her father, he answers more immediately than if a boy does," explains Jennifer Mascaro, lead author of the study. "From this result, we should take into account what role the unconscious plays in gender differences," he adds.

"Both men's behavior and brain responses are related to a different way of acting towards girls or boys."

To record interactions with their children, parents wore a belt with a small computer that recorded random audios for 50 seconds every nine minutes, for 48 hours. They wanted to eliminate the bias that could be made by asking them direct questions about how to treat their sons and daughters. Nothing better than having the recorded test.

Of the 52 participants, 30 were parents of girls and 22 of boys, the results showed that the parents were more attentive to their daughters and they sang more with them than with the children. They also found that the parents of girls tend to talk more about emotions with the girls They also use with them more words associated with the body, such as "belly", "cheek", "face", "fat" and "feet".

For its part, parents of children usually play more with them and use more words related to energy and achievement, such as "better," "win," and "super." On the contrary, the parents of daughters use a more analytical language with words such as "all", "below" and "much", which could be related to future academic success.

More sensitive with them

Another part of the study consisted of recording the response of the parents through a brain scanner by showing them photos of adults who knew nothing, unknown children and their own children with a happy, sad or neutral expression.

"The girls' parents had a stronger response in the brain areas responsible for emotions, rewards and values when they saw their little girl happy. Instead, the brains of the parents of children responded more emphatically to neutral expressions on their faces, "according to the research. Clearly, the parents" melt "more in the face of the daughters' happiness.

"We must be aware of how unconscious notions of gender can play in the way we treat even very young children."

"Our study offers one of the richest data sets for parents now available, as it combines real-world behavioral assessments with brain responses," the researchers say.

They also clarify that they are unconscious responses. It does not mean that girls are loved more than boys, since all parents do the best they can for their children, but the way to approach parenting is different. It is not clear whether these differences are due to biological and evolutionary bases, cultural stereotypes about the way one should act, or a combination of both.

It is only the result of an investigation conducted with 52 parents; It is not a conclusive sample to affirm that it is so in all cases. I would have liked to know, for example, if the same father of girl and boy also has a different treatment with one and the other.

But anyway it traces a tendency in the way of interacting with the children in which dealing with girls seems to be more emotional (Maybe that's why women are more empathetic), and with more intentional children, although as the author of the study says "the validation of emotions is good for everyone, not just for daughters."