FREE ESSAY ON PROSOCIAL INTERACTION DIFFERENCES

PROSOCIAL INTERACTION DIFFERENCES

Prosocial Interaction Differences Between Single Gender Groups and Coed Groups
I first became interested in personal interactions in high school. As the group
psychologist for my circle of friends, I was exposed to many different type of people and
how those people dealt with situations. Also, I was fascinated by why some people(like
myself) feel compelled to do nice things for other people like picking up a dropped
pencil to bringing an ill person hot soup. I noticed that the same guys were always
asking me the same questions. Usually the questions revolved around girls, such as how to
get them, what to do once you got them, and how to keep them. It mesmerized me that these
guys were completely uninformed about women while many of my other friends were having no
trouble in the same area. Over time I saw that the guys that were asking all the
questions had not had much interaction with the opposite sex except during school. I
wondered if there was some correlation, and so I am proposing this study.
My first article involving prosocial behavior was done in Norway by Moncrieff Cochran and
Inge Bo. Their focus was to evaluate the influences of parents, peers, and other network
members on the pro- and antisocial behavior of antisocial behavior of antisocial boys.
The Stavanger study was set in the city of Stavanger for several reasons. A recent
population spurt has triggered an increase in the amount of negative youth behaviors, and
so it seemed to be a prime opportunity. The two junior high schools used in the study
were selected because they contained a exemplary mix of lower middle-, middle-, and upper
middle-class families. Cochran and Bo found that  . . .time spent by parents with their
boys as central to maintaining low levels of antisocial behavior. They also saw that the
neighborhood environment that the boys resided in was at least as powerful a predictor of
antisocial behavior. 
My Hypothesis is that if adolescents participate in coed extracurricular activities, then
they will be more likely to show prosocial behavior to both genders.
I then propose the following correlational study to test my hypothesis. The population of
interest is male and female adolescents, age 12 to 17. The selection process of the
subjects would be to pick several single gender groups in a specific area, such as
Private schools and Boy Scouts Troops. Next would be to select some coed groups in the
same area such as bible study groups and school clubs like biology club and drama club. 
The independent variable in my study is whether or not the subject participates in coed
or single gender extracurricular activities. This variable would be operationalized by
In this study the dependent variable is amount of prosocial behavior exhibited by the
subject. It would be operationalized by 
With the permission of the adult leaders of the groups, the adolescents involved, and
their parents we would proceed by observing the groups at their respective meetings.
After observing how
There is some evidence for closer relationships between same-sex as opposed to opposite
sex siblings