The most common place individuals exhibit social competencies is within friendships

  • Summary

  • Contents

  • Subject index

As Ellen Bercheid points out in her foreword to this volume, relationship science is a complex and ever expanding field. Much credit goes to editors Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick for their scholarly dedication to the advancement of this multidisciplinary arena. This sourcebook demonstrates, yet again, their expertise and leadership as they succeed in combining many great contributions to the field by some of the most respected specialists around. Read this book for a panoramic view of close relationship research with highlights from current literature, original research, practical applications, and projections for future research.

The Life Cycle of Friendship

The Life Cycle of Friendship

The life cycle of friendship

Contents

  • Friendship Formation 71
    • Environmental Factors 71
    • Individual Factors 72
    • Situational Factors 72
    • Dyadic Factors 72
  • Achieving Closeness 74
    • Self-Disclosure 74
    • Similarity 74
    • Interaction Differences 75
    • Fun and Relaxation 75
  • Maintaining Friendships 75
    • Implicit Maintenance Strategies 75
    • Explicit Maintenance Strategies 76
  • Deterioration and Dissolution 78
    • Conflict and Anger in Friendships 78
    • Dissolution of Friendships 79
  • Restoring Friendships 81
  • Conclusions and Applications 82

Friendships weave in and out of people's lives. Although their significance often is overlooked, friendships are an important source of meaning, happiness, enjoyment, and love. This chapter charts the life cycle of friendships, including their formation, closeness, preservation, and maintenance. Friendship deterioration, dissolution, and restoration are also discussed. The focus is on adult friendships, predominantly same-sex friendships. Gender differences are noted in cases where women's and men's friendship experiences diverge. Finally, many ...

locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Sign in

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • The most common place individuals exhibit social competencies is within friendships

    Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life

  • Read modern, diverse business cases

  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

sign up today!

  • PDFView PDF

The most common place individuals exhibit social competencies is within friendships

The most common place individuals exhibit social competencies is within friendships

Under a Creative Commons license

Open access

Highlights

SC difficulties predict peer victimisation and negative friendship quality.

Victimisation does not mediate the link between SC difficulties and social anxiety.

Friendship quality does not interact with SC difficulties to predict social anxiety.

Research exploring etiological pathways to social anxiety in childhood is needed.

Abstract

Social and communication (SC) difficulties predict increased social anxiety (SA) symptoms in childhood. Peer victimisation and friendship quality are commonly associated with both SC difficulties and SA. Based on this, we tested for a cascade effect of early SC difficulties, peer victimisation and friendship quality on SA in late childhood, using a population-based sample of 8028 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort. Parent-reported data were collected on SC difficulties at age 7 and SA at age 7, 10 and 13. Child-reported data on peer victimisation and friendship quality were collected at age 8. Our results revealed that SC difficulties predict increased negative friendship qualities and peer victimisation. Relational victimisation predicted increased SA symptoms at 13 years old. Neither overt nor relational victimisation mediated the developmental relationship between SC difficulties and SA. Furthermore, friendship quality did not moderate the developmental relationship between SC difficulties and SA. In addition, no sex differences were observed. The evidence demonstrates that peer victimisation and friendship quality do not explain why some children with SC difficulties go on to develop SA. Future research clarifying the complex etiological pathways contributing towards the development of SA in childhood and adolescence is warranted.

Keywords

Social and communication difficulties

Social anxiety

Longitudinal

ALSPAC

Cited by (0)

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

What is competent communication in friendship?

Communication competence refers to the ability to communicate in the most appropriate and effective way for a certain situation. Interpersonal communication is the communication that takes place between individuals. It is important because it involves all of the ways that people exchange communication.

Which friendship stage is characterized by the development of relationship norms beyond those original roles and stereotypes?

The fourth stage, nascent friendship, occurs when the friends are no longer interacting within their original roles, and their interactions do not follow the stereotypes associated with those roles.

What is the first stage in the development of friendship?

The first stage of friendship is contact, a point at which two people meet and become acquaintances. At this stage, they are likely to know little more than basic biographical information about each other. If the friendship never develops beyond the contact stage, the friends will remain acquaintances.

Which type of friendships is activity centered?

Agentic friendships, on the other hand, were activity-centered.