SEX DIFFERENCES AND MOTIVATION IN THE URGE TO DESTROY.

1. This study gives empirical support to the general idea that boys are more destructive than girls. 2. That girls seemed more willing to confess privately than publicly to destructive acts suggests that social attitudes and expectations account for at least part of the difference between the sexes. 3. The episodes described showed that boys were more vigorous, bold, and less inhibited than the girls in their destructive escapades. 4. The enjoyment of excitement, the stimulus of a crowd situation, and the expression of aggression were the motives of which, the respondents seemed most aware. 5. The fact that several respondents mentioned enjoyment of the act itself suggests that the urge to destroy may be closely associated with the urge to create. If so, the greater destructiveness of boys over girls may be associated with the greater achievement of creativity of the male sex. 6. The urge to destroy, though better controlled in adults, survives the ages of childhood and adolescence, and presumably it derives from the same motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]