DATE=3-18-02

TYPE=BOOK WORLD

NUMBER=7-36069

TITLE="THE WONDER OF GIRLS: UNDERSTANDING THE HIDDEN NATURE OF OUR DAUGHTERS," BY MICHAEL GURIAN Q & A, Part One

BYLINE=NANCY BEARDSLEY

TELEPHONE=619-1107

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=VICKI SWANEY

CONTENT=

INTRO: Therapist Michael Gurian is best known for "The Wonder of Boys" and other best selling books aimed at helping parents raise their sons. The books draw heavily on his research into the way biology and brain development affect male behavior. Now he's used similar kinds of research to write "The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters." In a recent interview with VOA's Nancy Beardsley, Michael Gurian talked about how female behavior is affected by oxytocin (OX-ee-TOSE-in). It's a chemical associated with labor and childbirth, but also linked to the ability to form relationships. Here's the first part of their discussion:

NB: Mister Gurian, is today's generation of girls different in certain ways from previous generations?

MG: Well, there are some differences. In certain cultures like ours, earlier puberty is a difference because of the food hormones and so on. Also we have a much more stimulating external world than say, a hundred years ago. There are ways in which our girls are much more experienced at younger ages and understand the social technologies more than girls may have a hundred years ago. But I always maintain that the similarities outweigh the differences. If the parents and the extended family are well-attached to the girl, that 'girlness' is what rules the day.

NB: And what are the most important innate qualities that make them different from boys?

MG: We all develop on a spectrum, and so we always want to say when we talk about boy and girl difference that there are some girls who are very boyish, and some boys who are very girlish. And what that means is the brains kind of look like each other. If we have a male who teaches second grade, when you pet-scan (PET stands for Positron Emission

Tomography--can be translated as "make computerized radiological images of the brain") his brain, it looks a little more like a normal female brain. If you have a woman who becomes an engineer we pet-scan her brain and see it looks a little more like quote, unquote, the typical male brain. But for the most part, probably somewhere around 70 percent of us are either very male or very female, and when we pet-scan we see the difference in the brain. And for those, here are some key differences. Because of brain chemistry and hormones, there is an 'intimacy imperative' in girls and women that men and boys don't have as much of, and I'll give you a quick example of why. There's a brain chemical called oxytocin. And women and girls secrete much more oxytocin. It's a bonding chemical. When a girl walks into a room, she sees a baby or a small animal like her pet cat, her oxytocin levels go up. It makes her move toward and hold that animal or that baby. And people haven't realized it. They've thought it must be that we socialize the girls to hold babies. And of course that's an element, no doubt about it, but it starts in brain chemistry.

NB: And you say there are very different attitudes towards morality?

MG: Yes, and in 'The Wonder of Boys,' I talked about morality in a boy's life. Boys and girls understand morality differently, even though morality itself is equally important to both. Boys tend to think more about moral rules, and they base more of their morality on their hierarchy. So if a leader tells them to do something they're more likely to do it. And if they're given five rules to follow and they've followed those five rules, they're more likely to say, 'Okay, I've done the right thing.' And oxytocin is one reason males don't tend to go as directly toward empathic responses. They will move more toward aggression responses to meet their goals. It doesn't mean they're not empathic, of course they are. But it means in a split second if they have to make a choice, they're more likely quite often to choose an aggression response, whereas females are more likely in some of those cases to choose a direct empathy response, to immediately say 'Oh, what was the consequence of that action, I need to figure that out.' So males will tend to base their morality on, 'I've followed the rules, I'm fine.' Girls tend to base it on what was right or wrong in this given situation and how much compassion did I show or not show? And they are not quite as likely, especially when they feel someone is going to get hurt, to say 'The leader told me to do it so I'll do it.' So there are many more differences, but that would be a couple of them.

NB: Michael Gurian, thank you very much. I've been talking with Michael Gurian about his new book "The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters." In the second part of our conversation tomorrow, Mister Gurian will discuss how physical changes affect girls as they grow olderand how those changes are linked to their emotional well-being.