Friendship and Friendship Quality in Middle Childhood ... - Psychology

FRIENDSHIP AND FRIENDSHIP QUALITY
tasks); intimate exchange (i.e., the extent to which the relationship
is characterized by disclosure of personal information and
feelings); and conflict resolution (i.e., the degree to which disagreements
in the relationship are resolved efficiently and
fairly). In addition, we compared high-, average-, and low-accepted
children with respect to the level of satisfaction they
expressed with their best friendship. We included a satisfaction
measure, because children of different levels of acceptance
might report similar amounts of satisfaction even though there
are differences in the specific qualities they perceive in their
friendships. 1
A fourth aim of the present research was to examine children's
friendship adjustment in relation to children's feelings of
loneliness and social dissatisfaction. The link between friendship
adjustment and loneliness has been the subject of considerable
theorizing but little empirical inquiry. Sullivan (1953) drew
specific attention to the putative links between friendship and
loneliness, ascribing special significance to preadolescent
friendship as a means of staving off feelings of loneliness and
isolation. Over the past several years, considerable progress has
been made in the reliable measurement of loneliness in children
(see Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams, 1990), and
loneliness has been found to be correlated with low group acceptance
or rejection as measured by sociometric ratings or a
combination of positive and negative sociometric nominations
(e.g., Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984; Asher & Wheeler, 1985;
Cassidy & Asher, 1992; Crick & Ladd, 1993). Dyadic friendships
were not assessed in these studies, however. Therefore, it
remains to be seen whether friendship bears a similarly strong
relationship to loneliness or whether the apparent relation between
loneliness and acceptance might be accounted for by
differences in the friendship adjustment of accepted and unaccepted
children. Furthermore, it is of theoretical and practical
interest to learn whether having a friend has positive emotional
benefits for low-accepted children who might otherwise report
high levels of loneliness. Such a possibility is suggested by Bukowski
et al. (1987), who focused on friendship adjustment,
acceptance, and children's feelings of general self-worth and
perceived cognitive and social competence.
In summary, the specific aims of the present research were (a)
to examine the prevalence of mutual friendship among children
in general and among low-accepted children in particular;
(b) to develop a new measure of friendship quality; (c) to compare
friendships of accepted and low-accepted children in
terms of specific qualitative features and with respect to children's
satisfaction with their friendships; and (d) to examine
how acceptance, having a friend, and the quality of one's best
friendship are related to the degree of loneliness and social
dissatisfaction in middle childhood.
Subjects
Method
Eight hundred and eighty-one children were recruited from 36 thirdthrough
fifth-grade classrooms of five public elementary schools located
in a mid-sized, midwestern community in the United States. The
participants represented 98.5% of all children enrolled in these
classrooms (13 children were excluded at parental request). Two
hundred and ninety-six children (163 boys and 133 girls) were in the
613
third grade, 251 children (135 boys and 116 girls) were in the fourth
grade, and 334 children (174 boys and 160 girls) were in the fifth grade.
The sample was 73.2% White, 23.4% Black, and 3.4% Asian or Hispanic.
All children completed all measures. However, for certain analyses
(see the following sections) only children (« = 484) with at least one
mutual, very best friend were of interest. The distribution of gender
and grade for this subsample of friended children was as follows: 154
third graders (71 boys and 83 girls), 141 fourth graders (68 boys and 73
girls), and 189 fifth graders (95 boys and 94 girls).
Measures
Level of acceptance. We used a "roster-and-rating" sociometric
procedure (Singleton & Asher, 1977) to assess children's level of
classroom acceptance. Children were provided with rosters of all classmates
and were asked to indicate on a l-to-5 rating scale how much
they liked to play with each of their classmates. A child's level of acceptance
was determined from the average rating received from his or her
classmates, standardized within gender within each classroom. Children
were classified as high-accepted (n = 65 boys and 63 girls) if their
received rating z score was greater than or equal to 1. Children were
classified as low-accepted (n = 74 boys and 76 girls) if their z score was
less than or equal to -1. The remaining children (n = 333 boys and 269
girls) were classified as average-accepted. The high-accepted and lowaccepted
groups represented the highest 14.5% and lowest 17% of the
sample in terms of acceptance, respectively.
Friendship assessments. Children's friendships were identified by
using data from a two-step sociometric nomination procedure. In the
first step, children were asked to indicate their three "best friends"
from a roster of the names of all other children in their class. In the
second step, children were then asked to review their three choices and
to indicate which of the three choices represented their single, "very
best friend." We then examined the choice matrix within each
classroom to identify children who nominated each other. 2 Children
were considered to have a very best friend if the classmate they designated
as their very best friend in turn included them among his or her
' We are indebted to Carol Dweck for suggesting an independent
assessment of children's friendship satisfaction.
2 An issue that arises concerns the appropriateness of restricting
friendship choices to within classrooms. It is possible that children
who differ in acceptance also differ in their tendency to have a friend
outside the classroom and that restricting friendship nominations to
within the class could underestimate the friendship status of certain
groups. In a previous study, we reported the results of a direct appraisal
of this possibility using a sample of 278 elementary school-age children
(Parker & Asher, 1989). In that study, before children completed
any other sociometric measure, they were asked to write the names of
their three very best friends. The children were told that these friends
could live anywhere but should be other children and not adults. The
number of friends listed who were not class members was tallied for
each child. On average, children included just under one (M = 0.90)
nonclassmate on this list of friends. A Gender X Level of Acceptance
analysis of variance indicated no significant main effects or interaction.
Thus, high-accepted, average-accepted, and low-accepted children
did not differ in the number of nonclassmates they included.
Because these nominations were of children outside the classroom, it
was not possible to verify whether friendships were actually reciprocal
relationships. But the important finding is that whatever underestimation
of friendship does take place by restricting friendship assessment
to the classroom seems to be limited and not particularly biased toward
one acceptance group or another.