BOYS SAY TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS IS WASTE OF TIME.

Stereotypes are so widely believed because they are often true. Everyone has heard that "men are from Mars; women are from Venus." We are often told boys are less sensitive than girls because men need to project strength and cannot handle embarrassment.

Yet, is this correct? University of Missouri-Columbia psychology professor Amanda Rose maintains that boys do not talk to their friends about their feelings because they see no point. She measured self-disclosure, or how often children talk about worries, in relationships by studying more than 500 fifth-grade students. Finding a difference between the sexes was not a surprise, she says. "We almost always find that girls are more likely to talk about their problems." What was interesting was the reason boys gave for not opening...