Friendship Flashcards
How do you define a friend?
How does freind prefernece change with age?
More time in peer interaction: (Higgins & Parsons, 1983)
At 2, only 10% of time is spent with peers
On entry into school, 30% of time is spent with peers
Greater preference for peer interaction (Ellis et al., 1981) as you get older, preference for adult companion decreases wit hage from 1/2-11/12
During school years children become increasingly concerned about their acceptance by the peer group (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998)
why is friendship important to us psycholgically?
Development of social skills
Links with mental health, well-being, school success
Links to feelings of selfworth (Maunder & Monks, 2018)
What is the differecne between a freind and a peer?
Friend = mutual liking Peer = another in the same social group
give 9 ways to measure friendship
Observation
Peer (sociometric) nominations
Reciprocal nominations
Revised Class Play (Reputation Measure)
Rating Scales
Sociometric ratings (will they help you, will they tell you when you do something wrong etc.)
Friendship Quality
Paired comparisons of nominations/ratings
Social network analyses
What is a sociometric diagram?
A diagram which shows who is friends with who in a group of people, small clusters indicate friendship group, large clusters indicate peer group
how do you measure peer relations
how much someone is liked can be done on a 4x4 table
Number of like nominations: few and many on one side
number of dislike nominations: few and many on another side of the table
outline what has been found in sociometric studies?
Popular children:
Good social skills
Not typically aggressive
In adolescence, they do begin using more relational aggression.
Rejected children:
Aggressive-rejected children (40-50% of rejected children)
Withdrawn-rejected children (10-25% of rejected children)
Interpret benign situations as intentional, and have difficulty coming up with solutions for difficult social situations.
Neglected children:
Less sociable and disruptive than average children
Controversial children:
Have characteristics of both the popular and rejected children
Socially active and often group leaders
give some examples of social-conitive development friendship helps build
Cooperation- taking part in a more complex play need to work together to achieve something
Negotiation
Mental state awareness- start to understand what other people think and believe
Emotional awareness- understand when to talk and when to hold back
Outline how Piaget and Vygotsky’s views on the social-cognitive development and freindship
Relatively equal in perceived power
Piaget
-peers are useful in the construction of one’s own explanations & rules of how things work
Cognitive disagreement would lead peers to be aware of and explore differing perspectives on a problem
Vygotsky
-cooperation in relationships is useful in the construction of one’s skills and abilities
-Zone of proximal development: Adults and peers as tutors (scaffolding)
First intimate relationship
Friendships support social-cognitive development
define friendship
A voluntary and reciprocal relationship between 2 individuals
Outline Early friendship development according to selman 1981
Between 3 and 7:
Intimacy refers to children’s physical location
e.g. Conflicts arise over toys and space
Between 4 and 9:
Friendships are one-way: exist because fulfil some function that the self wants
A close friend is someone they know likes and dislikes of
Outline later friendship defined by selman 1981
Between 6 and 12:
Are able to reflect on joint experiences
Concerned with coordinating and approximating likes and dislikes
Fairweather friendships… (specfic argument with friend but as soon as there is an argument friendship is over.
Between 9 and 15: Can have intimate and mutually shared relationships
Have a mutual understanding and concern –share personal problems
Between 12 and adulthood:
Accepts independence and dependence
outline factors imortant in considering friendships
PROXIMITY: Young children have friends who are close in proximity
Older children accept more distance
SAME AGE
-Early & Middle childhood = same-age friends
SIMILARITY:
Young children like similarity of location or features Older children select similarity on the basis of personality features, common interests & attitudes, etc.
Epstein 1989
Outline friendships in infancy
Infants have peer preferences (Howes & colleagues)
12- to 18-months: more smiling, reaching, touching specific peers
12- to 24-months: 3 times more likely to comfort preferred peers
20 months: selectively initiate interactions (and play) with some peers over others
how does friendship display itself in early childhood?
Reciprocated friendships appear
Young mixed-sex friendships become more gender segregated
Children begin to recognize that some peers are more dominant than others – reflected in conflict situations
what is the sex cleavage?
Sex segregation occurs early on: Infants prefer to look at same-sex images
At 2, boys are more likely to respond when a boys asks them to play than a girl
Childhood, >90% peer time spent with same-sex
Adolescence, preference for same-sex interactions declines
BUT, cross-sex friendships do exist (McDougall & Hymel, 2007) 81% of 9- to 18-year-olds agree
64% of these children judge that the types of friends differ
Outline ethnicity and freindship?
Minority children tend to be more accepting of cross-race friendships (Leman & Lamm, 2008)
80% of African and European Americans had best friend from same ethnic background (Hamm, 2000)
60% of Asian Americans had best friend from same ethnic background (Hamm, 2000)
outline how interactions differe between friends and non-freinds
greater cooperation & coordination
more pretend play
more conflict, but also more likely to resolve conflict in controlled way
Explain similarity between friends
11- to 15-year-olds
Friends behaviour more similar than non-friends
Socially accepted friends more alike on nominations of having friends, being liked, and being a victim
Friends reported more similar depression levels
Gender differences:
Girls: friends more similar in cooperation, offers help and liked most nominations
Boys: friends more similar in shyness and victimization nominations
(Haselager et al., 1998)
outline the findings of Poulin et al. 1997
9 year old group
significant findings found for similarity in starting fights, leadership, direct observation and peer ratings for friends but not non-freinds
E/g/ if you’re friends with someone who starts a fight you’re more likely to do so yourself.
outline similarity in adolescence
Friendships were made on similarity of dimensions that matter, such as
attitudes to school and school achievement
normative behaviour (e.g., drug use, drinking, antisocial behaviour)
What’s normative varies by:
Sex. Difference in similarity of sexual behaviour and attitudes
Ethnicity. Differences in similarity of academic
orientation
(Hartup 1998, and Hamm, 2000)
Could these findings be accounted for by what is important for social reputation?
Do boys and girls friendship groups differ?
Girls had larger social networks
Girls social networks were more ethnically diverse
Girls had 62% of reciprocated friendships being cross-ethnic, boys had 54%
Lee, Howes and Chamberlain, 2007
What is important for group composition?
Sex appears to be more important than ethnicity Cross-sex dyads comprised of 7% of friendships Cross-ethnic dyads comprised of 59% of friendships
Lee, Howes and Chamberlain, 2007
Outline Cliques and crowds in adolescence
In adolescence
Often belong to more than one clique
Greater stability of cliques
Important to conform to group dress & behaviour
In adolescence, crowds become more important than what clique one belongs to:
Crowds are groups of individuals whose reputations fits with stereotypes (e.g., ‘freaks’, ‘geeks’,’ losers’, ‘jocks’) Often does not choose their association with a crowd voluntarily.
Assigned by peer group and may spend little time with the crowd. Important to conform to the clique
