ABSTRACT
The characteristics of the situation and the unfolding structure of the interaction itself are often more informative. Moreover, it may be misleading to attribute differences to sex or ethnicity even when they appear to make a difference. The situation is made even difficult by the fact that there is almost no research on gender differences in the social network factors associated with relational development. Gender and sex differences in personal relationships may take two general forms. One is a difference between groups or means. Females may report, for example, they love their partners or interact with network members more or less, on average, than males. The final pair of measures assessed the extent to which people liked the members of the partner's network. There was no difference in how much women and men liked the partner's family members. The final comparison was between same-sex female and same-sex male friendships.
