Brothers and Sisters

      Each of the 500 men studied was asked to indicate the number of
brothers and sisters that he had. In addition, each man was asked to
indicate the current ages of each one of his brothers and sisters along
with his own current age. Normally this type of questions does not yield
particularly interesting findings. And indeed as far as brothers were con-
cerned I not surprisingly found that there were no meaningful differ-
ences at all between the love-shy men and the non-shy men. In essence,
the love-shy men were no less likely than the non-shys to have grown
up with a brother around. Moreover, the experience of having an older
or younger brother was about equally prevalent in the backgrounds of
both the love-shys and the non-shys.
      On the other hand, large differences were found between the love-
shys and the non-shys as far as the experience of having had a sister
was concerned. Only 14 percent of the self-confident, non-shy men had
not grown up with a sister around. In contrast, fully 59 percent of the
university-aged love-shy men had grown up without having had a sister
around. And a full 71 percent (almost three out of every four) of the older
love-shy men had never had a sister.
      On the other hand, fully 51 percent of the self-confident, non-shy males
had grown up with two or more sisters, compared to only 6 percent of the
younger love-shy men, and just 3 percent of the older love-shy men.
      An interesting statistical point is of relevance here. American gov-
ernment statistics indicate that approximately one-third of all boys in
the United States grow up without a sister. The non-shy men studied
for this book were, as per the discussion in chapter five, more self-
confident and non-shy than the average or typical young man. In essence,
as a group they were blessed with an above-average level of self-
confidence vis-a-vis the opposite sex. And this may be a reflection of
the fact that only 14 percent of them grew up without having a sister
around, compared to approximately 34 percent of American men gen-
erally, and a full 71 percent of the most severely love-shy older men
who were studied for this book. (Again, 59 percent of the younger love-
shys did not have a sister.)
      Thus we can readily surmise that the experience of having a sister
might well have had something important to do with helping to develop
masculine self-confidence with women. Indeed, this suggestion becomes
all the more potent when it is noted that 51 percent of the very self-
confident men had two or more sisters, compared to only 6 percent and
3 percent of the two very love-shy groups.