Get a load of this article lead I saw over the weekend: “Contrary to the nurturing images of sisterhood put forth by chick flicks, female friendships can be a ticking time bomb of fickleness and judgment.” Oh, brother–I guess that makes “Bride Wars” a docu-drama, huh? The article goes on to cover a study in the journal Psychological Science.

The study isn’t available online, but I found a press release from the publisher. It reports findings that “males are more tolerant than females of unrelated same-sex individuals.” When I first read this, I thought, “Well, sure. Men’s friendships with each other tend to be more superficial than women’s.” Then I saw the following in the article where I first learned about the study:

The study’s authors conclude that the deep emotional investment often thought to make women’s bonds stronger is often their undoing.

“It’s lovely (for women) to think, ‘We care more about relationships, so we hold friends to higher standards,’” says lead author Joyce Benenson, who works in Harvard’s department of biological anthropology. “But the practical ramifications are that we can’t do the slightest thing wrong . . . And if we can’t care for somebody who screws up, that makes our position on friendship very precarious.”

She claims that women are constantly on “thin ice” with their female friends. That sounds like a stretch to me, especially considering how she reached this conclusion.

According to the press release, the researchers had male and female college students complete surveys about their relationship with their roommates. In a separate experiment, the participants read a story in which a hypothetical individual’s best friend was described as being completely reliable until one day when the friend promised to hand in a paper and did not. After reading the story, the participants judged the best friend’s reliability.

The males rated their roommates as being more satisfactory and less bothersome than females did. In addition, the researchers found at three different colleges that females were more likely to switch to a new roommate than males were. The results of the final experiment, in which participants judged one negative behavior of a formerly reliable hypothetical friend, showed that women downgraded the best friend’s reliability significantly more than men did.

I think it’s quite a leap from that downgrading to the researcher’s conclusions. Perhaps, for example, the female students took their grades more seriously. And downgrading the reliability of a friend is not the same thing as terminating the friendship or not caring “for somebody who screws up.”

I have good friends who I don’t necessarily consider that reliable, but our friendships haven’t fallen through the ice, and I of course care for them (I just wouldn’t ask them to hand in a paper for me). Further, most of my closest friends now I originally met at college, and I lived with many of them at one time or another. I’ve known the others for 10+ years, and I don’t consider any of our relationships “precarious.”

I also don’t think college students make the best subjects for this study—certainly not if their responses are going to lead to such sweeping conclusions about males and females in general. Speaking for myself, I was a lot flightier, emotional and, well, probably unstable than I am now or than I was even 10 years after college. You’re away from home and family, you’re experiencing a lot of things for the first time, you’re adjusting to independence, you’re meeting lots of new people, including many types that you’ve never encountered before. That four-year period can be tumultuous and is hardly reflective of the adult experience or adult relationships.

I also agree with a male sociologist who was quoted farther down in the news article:

Michael Kimmel, author of “Guyland,” says his only concern is that the study may confuse tolerance and longevity with depth.

“Male friendships may seem to last longer, and are certainly more tolerant, but that’s because men let a lot more slide,” says Kimmel. He believes the result is relationships that can withstand more crises but are “a lot less intimate” than those between women, who he says excel at “the business of friendship.”

Hear, hear!