The friends they have and the friends they want: desired friendship across the transition into adolescence

Previous studies of desired friendship have assessed desired friends with unilateral nominations (when one child chooses another child as a friend, but that friend nomination is not reciprocated). This calls into question the validity of findings suggesting that children want to be friends with o...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Bortman, Gilly (author)
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Florida Atlantic University
Subjects:
Online Access:http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004180
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004180
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Summary:Previous studies of desired friendship have assessed desired friends with unilateral nominations (when one child chooses another child as a friend, but that friend nomination is not reciprocated). This calls into question the validity of findings suggesting that children want to be friends with others who differ from themselves, but befriend similar others by default (Sijtsema, Lindenberg, & Veenstra, 2010). The current study concerns desired friendships among 195 girls and 147 boys in Grades 4 through 6. Two hypotheses were tested. The first hypothesis was that children will not choose the same unilateral and desired friends. The second hypothesis was that children will be more similar to their reciprocal friends than to their unilateral and desired friends. Questionnaires measured desired friendship, friendship, and child characteristics. Both hypotheses were supported. However, there were group-level differences. The importance of using desired friend nominations to measure desired friends is discussed. === Includes bibliography. === Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. === FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection