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IF YOU’VE always suspected that the male of the species can be competitive to the point of stupidity, here’s your proof.

Rosanne Roy from McGill University in Montreal and her colleagues have found that boys will compete just for the sake of it, regardless of whether there’s anything to be gained. But girls won’t waste effort on competition unless it pays.

To compare the way the different sexes compete, the team got 40 groups of four boys or four girls, aged 5 to 6 or 9 to 10, to play two specially designed games. In one, for instance, the children had to thread beads on a stick until it was full, taking the beads from either a common pot or another player. One set of rules meant that everyone would eventually win, so competition was pointless. Another set of rules allowed for only one winner, so competing made sense.

The girls spent more time watching the reactions of their competitors and responding to them. “They would watch the facial expression of their opponent as they decided whether or not to take the bead. Sometimes they would decide not to,” says Roy.

And the older girls wasted no effort on competition, except when it paid off. Boys, on the other hand, competed just for the sake of it, even if there was nothing to be gained. “It was way too much fun to take from others,” Roy says.