Same-sex Friends Research Articles

Minimal dating and its relationship to other social problems and general adjustment

This study was designed to answer the question of whether low-dating men and women have difficulties in same-sex friendship interactions and in general psychological adjustment. Anxious minimal daters were compared with active relaxed daters on self-report, self-monitoring, behavioral, and peer-rating measures of social anxiety, social skill, and social activity. In addition, all subjects were given the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) as a measure of general adjustment. For men, our prediction that low-daters would show difficulties in samesex friendship interactions was confirmed, as was the prediction that they would be less well adjusted than high-daters on the EPI. However, the predictions were not confirmed for women. Low-dating women did not show any difficulties in same-sex friendship interactions, nor were they any less well adjusted in general than high-dating women. These results point to the importance of sex, differences in understanding and treating minimal dating and suggest that broader based interventions may be needed for low-dating men.

Self-Reference in Children's Descriptions of Peers: Egocentricity or Collaboration?

HONESS, TERRY. Self-Reference in Children's Descriptions of Peers: Egocentricity or Collaboration? CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 476-480. Children's references to themselves in descriptions of others are typically interpreted as reflecting degree of egocentrism. However, a content analysis of children's descriptions of liked and disliked peers as a function of their own age (8-13), sex, and verbal intelligence revealed a sharp rise in the use of such constructs for older children. This is argued to mark the preadolescent period of Sullivan's developmental theory, which involves an intimate same-sex friendship that hinges on collaboration in satisfying each child's needs. The limitations of a strictly quantitative content analysis are illustrated in discussing earlier applications of Werner's theory.

DISCLOSURE STYLES AND A HINT AT THEIR GENESIS

In this study we examine the possibility that persons vary in their styles of self-disclosure. A 3 (disclosure target: mother, father, best same-sex friend) × 2 (topic: schoolwork, social relations with others) × 5 (regulation of disclosure behavior: amount, valence, honesty-accuracy, control of depth of disclosure, intended disclosure) matrix was used to generate items with which subjects agreed or disagreed (e.g., re: mother and schoolwork, I am always honest in my self-disclosures). A Q-analysis revealed four types of disclosers, including a type that was low in honesty and amount of disclosure to parents (parent-cryptic disclosers) and a type that was comparatively open to parents but low in amount and high in control of depth of disclosures to best friend (parentally open friend-cryptic disclosers). Discriminant analyses revealed that “family communication” patterns and “communication apprehension” were important variables in distinguishing the types, and a canonical correlation analysis showed that these two variables were generally important in predicting disclosure behavior across the entire subject sample.

Factor-Specific Dimensions in Person Perception for Same- and Opposite-Sex Friendship Dyads

Summary College students (43 male and 45 female) provided descriptions of themselves, their best same-sex friends, and their best opposite-sex friends, using the Subjective Estimation Blank derived from Cattell's 16 Personality Factor questionnaire. Results indicate substantial factor specificity in person perception. Males' self and male-friend descriptions emphasized leadership and rivalry dimensions. Females' self and female-friend descriptions indicated sensitivity to perceptions of social competency. Males tended to describe females in terms of sociosexual companionship, while females attended to males' probability of material success. Competitive relationships appeared to characterize same-sex evaluations for both males and females, while complementarity was the basis for other-sex evaluations.

Body Build Satisfaction and the Congruency of Body Build Perceptions

Female subjects were classified as satisfied (n = 15) or dissatisfied (n = 15) with their body build and were administered the Somatotype Rating Scale. The SRS allowed subjects to rate their own body build, their wished for body build, the typical female body build, and the body build of a same-sex best friend and a dating partner. Compared with dissatisfied subjects, satisfied subjects showed greater congruency between their own and wished-for body build, and greater congruency between their own and friend/date body builds, but less congruency between their own body build and the female body build stereotype.

A Rating Scale of Intimate Disclosure between Late Adolescents and Their Friends

Subjects were asked to recall actual intimate conversations with closest same-sex friend and closest opposite-sex friend and reconstruct the dialogue. Responses were used to form a reliable example-anchored scale. The criteria for rating were the topic of disclosure, the feeling-content and spontaneity of disclosure, and the receptivity of the target person. The sample was 128 Williams College students, evenly divided by sex, half freshmen and half seniors, Caucasian, and middle-class. An analysis of variance showed significant differences in level of intimate disclosure: freshman males to males, low; freshman males to females and senior males to males, moderate; senior males to females and females of either age to friends of either sex, high. Level of intimate disclosure was independent of the tendency to give socially desirable responses on the Marlowe-Crowne Scale. Using objective ratings as a standard, it was concluded that self-ratings of intimate disclosure are inflated and often inaccurate.

The Motive to Avoid Success: Exploring the Nature of the Fear

The relationship of Horner's (1968) measure of fear of success to the perception of interpersonal relationships is investigated in five samples of male and female college students. In addition to Horner's cue, the different samples wrote stories to a variety of cues describing aspects of same-sex and opposite-sex friendships. Fear-of-success subjects of both sexes significantly more often described dangers, as opposed to pleasures, in opposite-sex relationships. Fear-of-success female subjects significantly more often described same-sex disagreements as destructive of friendships. Results are discussed in terms of sex similarities and differences; the usefulness of fear of success as a cross-sex personality variable is explored.

Sex differences in social participation.

Twenty female and 38 male first-year college students maintained a daily record of their social interactions for 2 weeks early in the fall semester and for 2 weeks late in the spring semester. Over all interactions, females decreased time per day in interaction more than males did, primarily by reducing the length of interactions, and reported decreased satisfaction with these interactions. In interactions with three best same-sex friends, females also decreased length more than males did but maintained a higher level of satisfaction Number of interactions with same-sex best friend decreased markedly for females but not for males. The results were interpreted as showing that females socialize more intensely in the new environment than males and make use of the same-sex best friend to deal with the social stimulation. Differences between the sexes on interaction measures in the spring were minimal. Social psychology is often denned as the study of social interaction, and social psychologists do indeed study social interaction in a variety of ways. Strangely enough, however, social scientists in general are hard pressed to answer some of the most basic questions about social interaction: questions such as how much time during a day do people spend in social interaction? With how many different people do they interact? How long is the average interaction? How many people are involved in the typical social encounter, and what is its sexual composition? What differences exist among people in their reactions to their social lives? For each of these questions and the many others that could be asked, a second question immediately follows: In what ways, if any, do males and females differ in their social behavior? Using sex-based characteristics is a nearly universal way of describing

The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America

The female friendship of the nineteenth century, the long-lived, intimate, loving friendship between two women, is an excellent example of the type of historical phenomena which most historians know something about, which few have thought much about, and which virtually no one has written about.' It is one aspect of the female experience which consciously or unconsciously we have chosen to ignore. Yet an abundance of manuscript evidence suggests that eighteenthand nineteenth-century women routinely formed emotional ties with other women. Such deeply felt, same-sex friendships were casually accepted in American society. Indeed, from at least the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, a female world of varied and yet highly structured relationships

Communicative patterns of self-disclosure and touching behavior.

Summary One hundred ninety, male and female Israeli high school students responded to questionnaires inquiring into self-disclosure and touching behavior toward four target persons: father, mother, same-sex friend, and opposite-sex friend. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the two patterns were significantly positively correlated, indicating a consistent structural context expressed through interpersonal interaction. The results also found that the males engaged in significantly more touching behavior than the females, while for self-disclosure the trend was reversed. The implications of these and other findings are discussed in terms of sub- and cross-cultural norms in personality research.

AFFECTION AND RECIPROCITY IN SELF-DISCLOSING COMMUNICATION

Affection for and reciprocated disclosure by the other are generally thought to increase a person's willingness to engage in self-disclosing communication. The relationship between affection and disclosure is not consistently supported by the data, however, and the relationship between reciprocity and disclosure may well be an artifact of a confounded conceptualization of dyadic relations. Wright's model of same-sex friendships is proposed as more adequate than simple affection as a conceptualization of interpersonal relationships, and an adapted form of Chaffee and McLeod's coorientational paradigm is employed as a model of reciprocated disclosure. The hypotheses that affection accounts for less variance in disclosure than other criteria of friendship and that disclosure varies as a function of perceived rather than actual similarity were strongly supported. Although male and female subjects disclosed differently, hypotheses about sex differences in disclosure were not supported, failing to replicate previous findings. The implications of these data for further studies of self-disclosing communication are discussed.

Sex differences in patterns of self-disclosure among adolescents: A developmental perspective

The purpose of this study is to explore relationships among sex, target, and aspects of adolescent self-disclosure. An adaptation of the Journal and Lasakow (1958) Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (SDQ) was administered to 97 secondary school volunteers with same-sex friend and opposite-sex friend as specified targets. SDQ scores were obtained for a stratified random sample of 30 Ss matched with volunteers for school, grade, age, and sex. Results indicated no sex differences in total disclosure; Ss disclosed differentially to same-sex and opposite-sex friend. Female same-sex disclosure was greater than male same-sex disclosure. A high disclosure cluster for females was Tastes and Interests and Personality; for males it was Tastes and Interests, Work (Studies), and Attitudes and Opinions. These findings reflect patterns for volunteers and nonvolunteers, suggesting that volunteering was not a factor in obtained outcomes. Sex differences in aspects of disclosure are discussed in terms of sex-role variations in establishment of ego identity.

Reported and projected self disclosure.

A self-disclosure questionnaire was administered to 21 male and 21 female Ss under instructions to report what they (1) had disclosed, (2) would initiate, and (3) would disclose in response to others' initiation to the significant others of mother, father, same-sex friend and opposite-sex friend. The results indicated that Ss were not willing to initiate self disclosure at a greater depth than they had disclosed in the past, although they would be willing to disclose in more depth were topics initiated by the significant other. The same pattern of differential disclosure to significant others was found to hold for what Ss “had told,” “would initiate,” and “would respond.”