Same-sex Friends Research Articles

The adverse dyadic friendship (ADF): An exploratory retrospective view of female adolescents.

Friendships of adolescent girls play a significant role in providing socio-emotional support and enabling the attainment of developmental tasks. The present exploratory paper focuses on an aspect of close friendships that has yet to be widely examined, which we described as the Adverse Dyadic Friendship (ADF). This is a friendship whose negative elements are perceived from the distance of time as outweighing its positive ones. To examine the features of ADF, a qualitative study based on retrospective data obtained from 34 young adult females (Mage = 31.14, SD = 5.59) was conducted in Israel. Using a semi-structured online questionnaire, participants were asked to address a specific close same-sex friendship they had during their middle or high school years that has negatively affected them. The emerging themes (such as negative feelings and various coping strategies) suggest that ADF comprises an intense emotional condition, having implications on the development of individuals' self-perception. The consequences of ADF may be detrimental to adolescent girls' self-worth and friendship skills and extend into their adult life. Whereas the developmental literature emphasizes the positive aspects of friendship for adolescent girls, this study points out how ADF can also become a developmental challenge for them: on the one hand, ADF comprises a risk factor for their socio-emotional development, and on the other hand, presents an opportunity to learn and introduce changes in their lives. The main contribution of this paper is that ADF can stimulate further research on the complex aspects of friendship between adolescent girls.

Gender Roles in Young Adult Same-Sex Friendships in Egypt and the United States

Gender Roles in Young Adult Same-Sex Friendships in Egypt and the United States

Felt understanding in same-sex friendships and subjective well-being among emerging adults

Felt understanding in same-sex friendships and subjective well-being among emerging adults

Friendship Functions in Adolescence: Hungarian Version of the McGill Friendship Questionnaire

The aim of the study was to explore same-sex and opposite-sex friendship functions among 12 to 13- and 16 to 17-year-old Hungarian adolescents ( n = 304). To explore perceptions of friendship functions, the McGill Friendship Questionnaire (MFQ, 30 items, 6 factors: stimulating companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, self-validation, emotional security) was used. The confirmatory factor analysis did not support the theoretical structure of MFQ. Based on the exploratory factor analysis, the 26-item Hungarian version of MFQ can be used to measure adolescents (the original 6 factors were retained). The internal reliability indices of the MFQ versions (same and opposite sex) were adequate (Cronbach’s α: .69–.88). The results only partially confirmed the age and gender hypotheses. Based on the results, the older students are more likely to acknowledge the achievements and positives of a friend for both same-sex and opposite-sex friends, as well as intimacy for opposite-sex friends. Also among older students, we identified several significant gender differences: for girls, all features of friendship were more important, except self-validation in same-sex friendship. In the opposite-sex relationship, only stimulating companionship and reliable alliance are more important for girls. The results raise the possibility that friendship functions build on and reinforce each other with age.

A lower gender equality consciousness in rural and left-behind children: a latent class analysis.

School age is a critical period for the development of individual gender equality consciousness. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential classes of school-age children's gender equality consciousness, influencing factors and their differences in gender role, thus providing targeted guidance for the formulation and implementation of gender equality education strategies. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1846 school-age children using the demographic information questionnaire, gender equality consciousness questionnaire and Bem Sex Role Inventory. A latent class analysis was performed to explore gender equality consciousness latent classes. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the predictors of class membership, and chi-square test was used to compare the gender role of each latent class. The average age of the included 1846 participants was 10.10 ± 1.82 years old. The proportion of boy, grade 6 and living in urban area, respectively, were 50.8, 25.3, and 60.2%. The only children was 16.3% and left-behind children was 22.5%. 60.5% of all children thought their parents had a good relationship. The core family structure in all participants was 54.1%. Mothers were the caregivers of most children (63.6%). The same-sex friends more than 3 was 73.5%, while opposite-sex friends ranged from 0 to 1 was 41.7%. Three latent classes were identified and labeled "high gender equality consciousness" class (20.6%), "moderate gender equality consciousness" class (42.3%) and "low high gender equality consciousness" class (37.1%). Factors affecting the different types of school-age children's gender equality consciousness include gender, grade, caregiver, place of residence, whether they are left-behind children and parental relationship. Rural and left-behind children are more likely to enter the "low gender equality consciousness" group. Children in the "low gender equality consciousness" group had a lower proportion of androgynous gender role. Rural children and left-behind children are the priority groups for gender equality education. Gender role is the important predictors and intervention targets of children's gender equality consciousness. Educators or policy makers can formulate targeted intervention measures according to the influencing factors of potential classes.

Human papillomavirus vaccination: a quantitative cross-sectional study of perceived barriers, influential advisors, and acculturation among Chinese college students aged 18–26 in the USA

ABSTRACT HPV vaccines are highly effective in preventing HPV-associated cancers; however, HPV vaccination uptake is low among Chinese students studying at U.S. colleges. The purposes of this study were to evaluate (a) perceived barriers and influential others trusted for advice regarding HPV vaccination and (b) factors (i.e. HPV vaccination, acculturation) related to barriers and influential advisors among 18- to 26-year-old Chinese students attending U.S. colleges. We used a cross-sectional design to obtain self-reported data in 2019 from a chain-referral sample of 213 Chinese students. Among 125 respondents who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, the reported barriers to receiving the HPV vaccine included: (a) lack of recommendations from a healthcare provider, (b) lack of risk perception for HPV infection, and (c) limited knowledge about HPV vaccination locations. The influential advisors for receiving HPV vaccination were doctors, parents, self, nurses, and same-sex friends. Multivariate analysis revealed that unvaccinated respondents were more likely to report the following barriers to HPV vaccination: (a) lack of recommendations from a healthcare provider, (b) lack of risk perception for HPV infection, (c) limited knowledge about vaccination locations, and (d) uncertainty about effectiveness. High Asian identified respondents were more likely to perceive barriers related to limited knowledge about vaccination locations and uncertainty about effectiveness, while they were less likely to state nurses as influential advisors. Individuals who received one or more HPV vaccine doses were more inclined to view same-sex friends and nurses as influential advisors for HPV vaccination. The influence of culture on preferences for information sources, such as specific providers and provider gender, needs to be addressed. Programs designed to decrease barriers and improve HPV vaccination among Chinese students should also focus on acculturation status.

Touch Avoidance with Close People and Strangers: Effects of Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Relationship Status.

Human contact through physical touch is a core element in social bonding, which facilitates psychosocial well-being. Touch avoidance is an individual disposition that may prevent individuals from engaging in or benefiting from physical touch. The present study recruited 450 Italian participants (51.1% female) with a mean age of 32.2 ± 13.5 to complete a battery of demographic questionnaires and the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire (TAQ). Individuals who were single and reporting same-sex attraction avoided touch with family more often than their coupled counterparts or those reporting opposite-sex attraction. Moreover, males reporting same-sex attraction avoided touch with a potential partner more frequently. When comparing sex differences, women reported greater touch avoidance with opposite-sex friends more frequently, while males avoided touch with same-sex friends more frequently. Individuals reporting opposite-sex attraction reported greater touch amongst same-sex friends. Single males avoided touch with same-sex friends more frequently than those in a relationship. Overall, this contribution reflects the individual differences related to social touch avoidance with respect to sex, relationship status, and sexual orientation in an Italian sample.

The Power of Sharing Joy in Same-sex Friendships: Investigating the Association between Capitalization, Sense of Uniqueness, Happiness and Depression

The Power of Sharing Joy in Same-sex Friendships: Investigating the Association between Capitalization, Sense of Uniqueness, Happiness and Depression

Dating and friendships in adolescence: Variation across same-sex and other-sex romantic partners.

This research examined associations between dating and number of friends for rural adolescents with same-sex and other-sex dating partners using longitudinal sociometric data (N = 2826; 55% female, 87% White, mean age = 14 at baseline). In multilevel models assessing within-person change, boys gained female friends when they were in same-sex romantic relationships, compared to when they were single. In contrast, girls in same-sex relationships lost female friends and gained male friends. Adolescents in other-sex romantic relationships gained same-sex friends compared to when they were single. Results advance understanding of adolescent social and sexual development, suggesting that sexual minority adolescents find allies when dating but may struggle to maintain same-sex friendships.

Charity Bryant and the Queer Affordances of the Early American Acrostic

Abstract: This article investigates early American women's acrostic poetry, especially as it was written and exchanged in same-sex friendships and romantic relationships. It begins with a discussion of male poets' deployment of the print acrostic in the service of courtship, considering how such poems expose women to the public eye. Women's manuscript acrostics, on the other hand, refuse the isolation of the female subject in the heterosexual pair, instead creating community in their composition and circulation practices. By way of example, the article turns to acrostic poetry written and received by Charity Bryant, a young teacher from New England whose affections for other women prompted the exchange of manuscript acrostics that fit same-sex love into the larger framework of gendered respectability and morality. Taken together, these poems demonstrate the adaptation of women's manuscript practices to relationships that included but went well beyond the rhetoric of romantic friendship. In this exchange, the article argues, acrostics normalize same-sex relationships, making them legible and preserving them for posterity.

Intimacy and Race in Late Soviet Central Asia

Intimacy and Race in Late Soviet Central Asia

Queering Romantic Engagement in the Postal Age: A Rhetorical Education

Queering Romantic Engagement in the Postal Age: A Rhetorical Education

생활체육 테니스동호인의 참여동기가 운동몰입 및 스트레스에 미치는 영향: MZ세대를 대상으로

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the participation motive of life sports tennis clubs on exercise commitment and stress. For this purpose, as of 2022, a survey was conducted on 823 people who are sports tennis clubs of the MZ generation (early 20s to mid-40s) living in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, and Incheon. Ver. The following conclusions were obtained as a result of frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis using 25.0. First, among the sub-factors of participation motivation, it was found that skill development, fun, health/physical strength, socializing, and external display had a positive (+) effect on exercise commitment. Second, it was found that among the sub-factors of participation motivation, skill development, joy, health/physical performance, and external display had a negative (-) effect on same-sex friends among the sub-factors of stress. Among the sub-factors of motivation to participate, skill development, fun, health/physical, social, and external display had a negative (-) effect on heterosexual friends, family relationships, interpersonal relationships, economic problems, employment problems, and academic problems among the sub-factors of stress. appeared to affect Among the sub-factors of participation motive, socializing, fun, health/physical, and external display were found to have a negative (-) effect on values among the sub-factors of stress. Third, it was found that exercise commitment had a negative (-) effect on all sub-factors of stress.

Changes in Touch Avoidance, Stress, and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy.

In the present study we analyzed how attitudes toward touch have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in an Italian sample, through two different studies: in the first we contacted participants of the Italian validation study of the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire, asking them to take part in a follow-up study (N = 31, 64.5% women, age 42.58 ± 15.15); in the second we recruited a new sample of 717 people (73.92% women, age 34.25 ± 13.11), comparing it to the full validation sample of the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire (N = 335, 64.48% women, age = 35.82 ± 14.32) to further investigate the relationship between the pandemic, stress responses, fear of contagion, anxiety, and attitudes toward touch. Overall, we found higher post-pandemic scores for touch avoidance toward strangers and family members and lower scores in touch avoidance toward friends of either gender, along with a slight increase in anxiety and stress. Touch avoidance was also positively related to anxiety and/or stress levels except for touch avoidance toward same-sex friends, for which the relationship with anxiety was negative. Surprisingly, we found that young people were the most anxious, despite older people being more at-risk of dying from COVID-19. Women were slightly more stressed out. COVID-19-related fears were significant predictors of touch avoidance toward partners, friends and strangers, but not of touch avoidance toward family. The results suggest that touch avoidance increased during the pandemic (except toward same-sex friends), together with anxiety and stress levels, but the change was relatively small.

There is chemistry in social chemistry.

Nonhuman terrestrial mammals sniff themselves and each other to decide who is friend or foe. Humans also sniff themselves and each other, but the function of this is unknown. Because humans seek friends who are similar to themselves, we hypothesized that humans may smell themselves and others to subconsciously estimate body odor similarity, which, in turn, may promote friendship. To test this, we recruited nonromantic same-sex friend dyads and harvested their body odor. We found that objective ratings obtained with an electronic nose, and subjective ratings obtained from independent human smellers converged to suggest that friends smell more similar to each other than random dyads. Last, we recruited complete strangers, smelled them with an electronic nose, and engaged them in nonverbal same-sex dyadic interactions. We observed that dyads who smelled more similar had more positive dyadic interactions. In other words, we could predict social bonding with an electronic nose. We conclude that there is indeed chemistry in social chemistry.

The Role of Friends and Romantic Partners in College-Attending Emerging Adults’ Engagement and GPA

The current study examines the impact of perceived academic support from closest same-sex friends and romantic partners on two indicators of academic success: GPA (reported by the registrar’s office) and student engagement. Utilizing a longitudinal, daily-diary design, we investigate whether perceived academic support from closest same-sex friends and perceived academic support from romantic partners are unique constructs. Longitudinal path models also test the associations between academic support, student engagement, and GPA. Participants were emerging adults attending college ( N = 246) at a large, Midwestern U.S. university, who were in a committed romantic relationship for at least 4 months. Results suggest academic support from friends and academic support from romantic partners are unique constructs. Academic support from friends, but not romantic partners, is positively associated with student engagement, which subsequently predicts GPA. These findings build upon work demonstrating the importance of close relationships in undergraduate student engagement and achievement.

Mothers and friends as listeners for adolescent anger narration: Distinct developmental affordances.

Narrating emotional experiences to important others contributes to socioemotional and self-development from early childhood through adulthood. However, to date, almost no work has explored the distinctive ways that different listeners might shape narration, and the socioemotional outcomes of narrating experience. The present study examines how early adolescents (n = 106, age range 12-14, 54 girls, 21% low-income, 7% Latinx, 3% non-White) narrate anger experiences to mothers and close same-sex friends. Our findings suggest that these two listeners provide distinct affordances for narration, with implications for emotions and learning. Mothers provide a more elaborative, emotion-focused narrative context, whereas friends provide a playful, creative narrative context. Friends elicit larger reductions in distress than mothers, although listener-associated differences in learning were more complex. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for narrative development specifically as well as more generally for relatively underexamined aspects of narrative across adolescence and adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Friendship Conflict, Drinking to Cope, and Alcohol-Related Problems: A Longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

Drinking to cope with negative affect is a strong predictor of alcohol-related problems. We hypothesized that the association between friendship conflict and alcohol-related problems would be mediated by coping-with-depression motives in emerging adults’ close friendships. We used a 4-wave, 4-month longitudinal self-report survey design measuring friendship conflict, coping motives, and alcohol-related problems from 174 same-sex friendship dyads. Participants were recruited from Nova Scotia, Canada between September 2016 and February 2019. Participants had a mean age of 18.66 (SD = 1.17) and were 66.1% female. Data were analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling. Coping-with-depression motives mediated the link between conflict and alcohol-related problems at the between- and within-subject levels. Unexpectedly, coping-with-anxiety motives was an additional mediator at the within-subjects level. Interventions for emerging adults’ problem drinking should consider the influence of friendship conflict and its impact on emerging adults’ tendencies to drink to cope with both depression and anxiety. Materials/Syntax: https://osf.io/krs3v/

Exploring Sources of Information and Religious Beliefs in Regard to HPV and Vaccination Among Hispanic/Latino College Students in the USA.

We identified (a) sources of and communication about HPV information and (b) factors (e.g., religious affiliations) related to information sources and communication regarding HPV among Hispanic/Latino college students attending US institutions. Applying a cross-sectional design, we recruited 209 participants from US colleges. Most participants used healthcare professionals for their sources and communication about HPV-related information. Respondents who were practicing Catholics tended to use the Internet and healthcare professionals as their sources for HPV-related information. Healthcare professionals, TV, schoolteachers, same-sex friends, and family members affected participants' HPV vaccination, knowledge, and attitudes. Religious faith may influence information-seeking behaviors and requires more research.

Are They Still Friends? Friendship Stability of Adolescents With Chronic Pain: 1-Year Follow-Up.

Most adolescents identify their best friend as their main source of social support. Adolescents with chronic pain (ACP) report the loss of friendships due to pain. Friendships protect against loneliness and depression, yet adolescents with pain experience increased levels of loneliness and depression compared to peers. This longitudinal study examines the friendship stability of dyads that included an adolescent with chronic pain compared to non-pain friendship dyads as well as the factors contributing to a friendship breakup. Eighty-three participants from 61 same-sex friendship dyads across 3 sites participated in a 1-year follow-up survey designed to capture friendship features, indices of social-emotional well-being, pain characteristics, and friendship stability. Chi-square, repeated measures ANOVA, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Dyads that included an ACP experienced higher rates of friendship breakup. The shorter length of friendship and having chronic pain predicted a friendship breakup at time 2. ACP continues to experience worse scores on indices of social-emotional well-being that are not predicted with a friendship breakup. Understanding what contributes to positive long-term friendships for those with pain may inform strategies to maintain and improve friendships for those with pain and who experience social challenges.