Men often treat their friends better than women do

Who's more 'sociable,' men or women? Common sense says it's women, right? And many research studies back this impression up: Women are more interpersonal, more connected, more interdependent than men. Women are more likely to share intimate information with each other than men. But is that really the whole story?

There is also research suggesting that men have larger social networks than women do, and that male-male friendships last longer than female-female ones.

A team led by Joyce Benenson conducted a set of three studies that may shed some light on the question. In their first study, they identified 30 male and 30 female undergraduates at a small, Northeastern U.S. college. Half of each group was specifically recruited because they said they had some kind of conflict with their roommate. The other half said they were planning on living with their roommate for the rest of the school year. Each student was asked to rate their satisfaction with their roommate on a scale of 1 to 5. A score of 4 or 5 was defined by the researchers as 'satisfied.' So were there gender differences? Here are the results:

The male students were significantly more likely to be satisfied with their roommates than female students, whether or not they had a conflict with their roommate. The students also rated their roommates on social interaction, interests, values, and hygiene, and male students gave significantly higher ratings for their roommates than females for every category except hygiene.In a second study, the researchers surveyed three separate institutions to see how frequently male and female students requested to change roommates. Here are those results:
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