Gender differences in children's problem behaviours in competitive play with friends

Disruptive behaviour disorders are much more common in boys than girls ( Office of National Statistics, 1999 ); in contrast, gender differences in normative problem behaviours are poorly understood. To address this issue, 228 6‐year‐olds (134 boys, 94 girls) were each observed playing a board game with a same‐gender friend. Ratings of aggression, disruption, arousal and negativity were used to index problem behaviours. Multiple‐groups confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the latent factor had the same metric for boys and girls, but a mean that was approximately half a standard deviation higher for boys than girls. In addition, the association between the latent factor and teachers’ ratings of total difficulties was significantly stronger for boys than girls.