Environmental effects. The proportion of conflicts involving social toys (49%) did not differ significantly from the proportion of conflicts involving inpidual toys (51%). An interaction between age and toy-type, F(1.31)=6.60, p=.01, indicated that younger children directly precipitated conflict more often when playing with inpidual toys (M=2.19) than with social toys (M=.70), whereas younger (M=1.56) and older peers (M=1.39) were more similar in their direct actions when playing with social toys.

Summary

According to the analyses, same-sex and mixed-sex pairs do not differ much in frequency nor duration of conflict encounters during free play with toys designed to either facilitate social play or to encourage solitary play. If conflict is believed to be synonymous with fights and aggression, these results may be surprising; if, traditionally, males are more aggressive they should display more conflict. However, if conflict is defined as any behavior by one person that is protested by another, then these data seem to suggest that children protest what they perceive to be acts of provocation no matter their situation, defined here by their gender, their partner's gender, their age, and their play environment.

What does appear to differ is the manner in which children begin conflicts. Direct precipitating acts, such as approaching a partner, touching or tugging on a toy in the partner's possession, were most frequent overall, but older children, predictably, were more likely than younger children to use verbal behaviors, such as specifically making a request or asking about a toy. This difference was also found in protest behaviors. Mixed-gender pairs were more likely to be communicative than same-gender pairs. Whether this finding is artifactual or indicates children's awareness that miscommunication may occur between genders in purely physical acts is unclear. That this difference was not found in protest acts is interesting because it may suggest that although children may be willing to consider their partner in a precipitating act they may be more interested in signaling their displeasure to a precipitating act in whatever manner assures them of having their way.