Gender Difference of Social Behavior in the Cooperative-Competitive Game

Individual behavior will be different at uncertain conditions, this study is to identify the social behavior change of children while they play a cooperative and competitive game. An evolutionary game named Strike up was developed for the study which involves the players to practice advance arithmetic through five card number calculations and strategies. A case study method is employed, during the game, participants’ dialogues were video-taped and its content was later analyzed and interpreted bytriangulation. The results of this study suggest that (1) at the beginning, individualistic behavior displayed frequently in the boys’ team and dominating behavior was displayed at the final stage in the boys’ team. (2) female players tended to express more egalitarian behavior than altruistic, dominating, or individualistic behavior at the beginning. In addition, female players were more willing to altruistically help other comparing to the male players at the final stage.