The team’s conclusion was that girls were, in fact, just as aggressive as boys, though in a different way. They were not as likely to engage in physical fights, for example, but their superior social intelligence enabled them to wage complicated battles with other girls aimed at damaging relationships or reputations.
Great piece, not only if you have a teenage daughter, as I do, but it has implications elsewhere, too. Both my wife and sister-in-law have their radar up around my mother because of how sophisticated she is with her zingers… something my sister’s known for years. For me, it tends to go in one ear and out the other without my even noticing it.
It has male-female implications, too. I remember as a little kid, after a particularly nasty fight between my parents, asking my dad “Why are you so mean to mom?” He went into some detail about all the ways in which she was subtly mean to him. It wasn’t till I was in my twenties before I began to see it, caught in the triangle as I was.