Two studies established the psychometric properties of two friendship questionnaires; one taps respondents' feelings for a friend and satisfaction with the friendship, the other, respondents' assessments of the degree to which a friend fulfills six friendship functions (stimulating companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, self-validation, and emotional security). Factor analysis confir...

Friendship: Development in a Historical Perspective Friendship is a relationship that has existed across historical times in all types of societies. In developmental psychology, Piaget’s classical distinction between voluntary and symmetrical peerand friendship relationships and the asymmetrical and—due to its biological nature—compulsory parent–child relationship is still valid. However, given...

Increasingly, adolescents are growing up in multiethnic multicultural societies. While intergroup prejudice can threaten the multicultural societal cohesion, intergroup friendships are strong predictors of reduced prejudice. Thus, more research is needed to fully understand the development of intergroup friendships and their relations to less prejudicial attitudes. This study addressed two majo...

This analysis combines phenomenological and sociological research for an investigation of the social relationship of “friendship”. From a phenomenological perspective, it focuses on the epistemological basis, on the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship”. The social construction of friendship however, is described from a sociological research perspective with reference to con...

Social contexts exert structural effects on individuals' social relationships, including interracial friendships. In this study, we posit that, net of group composition, total context size has a distinct effect on interracial friendship. Under the assumptions of (i) maximization of preference in choosing a friend, (ii) multidimensionality of preference, and (iii) preference for same-race friend...

Ethnically diverse settings provide opportunities for interethnic friendship but can also increase the preference for same-ethnic friendship. Therefore, same-ethnic friendship preferences, or ethnic homophily, can work at cross-purposes with policy recommendations to diversify ethnic representation in social settings. In order to effectively overcome ethnic segregation, we need to identify thos...

This study tested whether adolescents' attachment style is related to friendship interactions and perceptions of friendship quality. Attachment pairings were contrasted to examine whether dyad members' security of attachment or their models of others was more related to friendship. A total of 44 pairs of same-sex adolescent friends were videotaped as they engaged in an intimate conversation. Pa...