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SPVV311-Lambert-Topic 8

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27 views2 pages

SPVV311-Lambert-Topic 8

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nfwzpry9xf
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4SPVV311 TOPIC 9: Childhood friendships

PLEASE NOTE: This is summary of Willard Hartup’s article on Friendships in childhood (pp. 721 –
725) Available in: Sprecher, S. & Reis, H. (2009). The Encyclopedia of Human Relationships. SAGE:
London

Adult friendships

 Friendships provide individuals with social capital, or resources.


 Close peer and friendships groups lessen mental health problems (such as depression)
associated with stigmatization which homosexual individuals might experience.
 Single people generally place high(er) value on friendships.
 Many adults now follow this “friendship model,” according to which committed roommate
arrangements become family.

General: Childhood friendships

 Most children succeed in forming friendship relationships, although about 10 percent fail to
do so.
 Social reciprocity and mutuality are central to the meaning of friendships for almost
everyone.
 The word friend usually appears in the third or fourth year, and sometimes preschool-aged
children miss their friends when they are absent or talked about.
 Usually, friendship is defined by the young child in terms of concrete reciprocities (“We
play”)
 During the preschool years, approximately 75 percent of children have preferred playmates.
Play is the main content of the interaction between friends.
 The number of children possessing these relationships rises during middle childhood when
about 85 percent have a best friend and several good friends.
 Self-ratings of their friendships by girls are more intimate than those of boys and self-
disclosure is more common.
 At the same time, girls employ relational aggression (including threats to terminate these
relationships) more frequently than boys do.

Cross gender friendships

 Research has shown that men and women and girls and boys enjoy their cross-sex
friendships because those friendships provide them with an insider’s perspective on how
members of the other sex think, feel, and behave.
 Cross-gender friendships were quite common in early childhood (approximately 1 to 5 years
old). About 30 percent of preschool children’s friends are other-gendered. This percentage
declines through middle childhood reaching 5 percent.
 Cross-gender friendships nearly non-existent in middle childhood (approximately 6 to 11
years old)
 During middle childhood, intimacy is a much greater concern in girls’ talk about their friends
than in boys’ talk.
 In adolescence when about 25 percent of teenagers’ friendship networks become mixed
gender. Once adolescence starts, the walls of gender segregation begin to crumble, and
individuals have more and closer cross-sex friends.
 Other-gender friends are likely to be “secondary” rather than “best friends” throughout
childhood.
 Research has demonstrated that individuals who attend university have more cross-gender
friends than do those who do not.

Friendship Expectations

 Among young children, friendship expectations emphasize common interests and concrete
reciprocities that occur mostly in play.
 Older children describe friends as sharing values and rules about loyalty and trust.
 Friends also expect to spend time with one another and to engage in constructive conflict
resolution.
 Adolescent friends expect shared interests, understanding, empathy, and intimacy with
friends; similarity between oneself and one’s friends is increasingly important.
 Symmetrical reciprocities remain their major basis. Continued consensual validation and
commitment are required for friendships to be maintained.

General research findings

 Family relationships in earliest childhood set the stage and carry forward to relationships
that children have with their peers.
 The sensitivity of early caregiving and the security of early attachments are both
antecedents of harmony, responsiveness, and competence in peer interaction during
childhood and beyond.
 Research suggests that coercive mother–child relations may lead to aggressive behavior
during childhood, both at home and outside.
 Interestingly, good family relations in the earliest years do not necessarily predict friendship
functioning in either early or middle childhood. Peer competence that is linked to early
family relationships predicts having friends and friendship functioning in childhood.
 “Only” children are more likely to have imaginary friends than are those who have siblings
(suggesting some strong need for companionship in early childhood).
 Research suggests that sibling relationships and friendships are, rather, quite different social
contexts— especially as related to conflict. Conflicts with siblings are more intense and
aggressive than are those between friends and less likely to be resolved with negotiation
and conciliation.
 Friendships in childhood “buffer” children from family vulnerabilities and stress.

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