Miller Intimate Relationships, 6/e

Chapter 7

Friendship

Copyright (c) 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/Irwin

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The Nature of Friendship

Friendships are based on the same building blocks of intimacy as romances are, but the mix

of components is usually different.

This chapter details what it means to

like an intimate partner.

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of FriendshipFriendships are characterized by three themes:

– Caring and affection – friends know each other well and care for each other

– Support and dependability – friends are reliable sources of comfort and help

– Enjoyment and fun – friends take pleasure in each other’s company

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

Thus, friendship is:

“a voluntary, personal relationship, typically providing intimacy and assistance, in which the two parties like

each another and seek each other’s company.”

(Fehr, 1996)

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

Compared to romances, friendships are:

– Less passionate

– Less exclusive

– Less confining, entailing fewer obligations to one’s partner

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of FriendshipStill, rich friendships are intimate relationships, involving:– respect

– trust

– capitalization

– social support

– responsiveness

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

Responsiveness involves attentive and supportive recognition of our needs and interests.

Capitalization occurs when others enthusiastically enhance our happiness by being excited when good things happen to us.

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

Social support may be of three types:

– Emotional support in the form of affection and acceptance

– Advice support in the form of information and guidance

– Material support in the form of money and goods

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

Sensitive support from others reduces our stress and draws us closer to them…

…but some people are better providers of social support than others are.

People with secure attachment styles give more effective support than insecure people do.

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The Nature of Friendship

Attributes of Friendship

However, it’s not what people do for us, but what we think they do for us that matters in the long run…

…and we perceive our partners to be more supportive when we are happy with them and securely attached to them.

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The Nature of Friendship

The Rules of Friendship

Rules for relationships are shared cultural beliefs about what behaviors friends should (and should not) perform.

There are standards of conduct in friendships that can make or break those relationships.

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The Nature of Friendship

The Rules of Friendship

Here are examples of the rules:

– Volunteer help in time of need– Trust and confide in each other– Stand up for the other person in his or her absence– Don’t criticize each other in public– Show emotional support– Strive to make him or her happy while in each other’s company– Don’t be jealous or critical of each other’s relationships– Share news of success with the other– Ask for personal advice– Don’t nag– Engage in joking or teasing with the friend– Seek to repay debts and favors and compliments– Disclose personal feelings or problems to the friend

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Childhood

Toddlers play together cooperatively and take evident pleasure in each other’s company.

They can be said to have rudimentary friendships.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Childhood

Children’s friendships gradually become richer and more complex as they age.

The sophisticated ways in which adults conduct their friendships are years in the making.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Childhood

Robert Selman recognized three stages of childhood friendships:

– Fair-weather cooperation

– Intimate-mutual sharing

– Autonomous interdependence

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Childhood

Different interpersonal needs may be preeminent at different ages:

– Acceptance during elementary school

– Intimacy during middle school

– Sexuality during high school

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Adolescence

• Teens spend less and less time with their families, and more and more time with their peers.

• Their social networks change over time, as same-sex cliques are gradually replaced with romantic partnerships.

• Peer pressure reaches a peak around the age of fifteen.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Adolescence• Attachment theorists identify four components of

attachment:– Proximity Seeking

– Separation Protest

– Safe Haven

– Secure Base

• As they grow older, adolescents gradually shift their primary attachments from their parents to their peers in a component-by-component fashion.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Young Adulthood• College students tend to seek proximity and safe

haven with friends, but are still likely to rely on parents as a secure base.

• Erikson’s stage of Intimacy vs. Isolation• After college, people tend to interact with fewer

friends but have deeper, more interdependent relationships with the friends they do have.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Midlife

A pattern of dyadic withdrawal occurs when people settle into romantic relationships: As they see more and more of a lover, they see less and less of their friends…

…particularly their friends of the other sex.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Old Age

Elderly people have smaller social networks than younger people do: They have just as many close friends, but they spend less time with casual friends.

The best explanation comes from socioemotional selectivity theory, which holds that – because they’re focused on the present instead of the future – elderly people seek quality, not quantity in their close relationships.

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Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Old Age

Overall, elderly people who have close friends live longer, healthier lives than do those who are less connected to others.

Friendships are invaluable for as long as we live.

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Differences in Friendship

Gender Differences in Same-Sex Friendships

Women’s friendships are characterized by emotional sharing and self-disclosure.

Men’s friendships revolve around shared activities, companionship, and fun.

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Differences in Friendship

Gender Differences in Same-Sex Friendships

Women’s same-sex friendships tend to be closer and more intimate than men’s are.

Why? (A) traditional gender roles, (B) social norms that encourage emotional constraint,

and (C) homophobia discourage intimacy in men’s friendships.

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Differences in Friendship

Individual Differences in Friendship

There are several differences from person to person that influence the friendships we form.

• Self-monitoring -- Low self-monitors have fewer friends, but their friendships are more intimate than those enjoyed by high self-monitors.

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Differences in Friendship

Individual Differences in Friendship

• Need for intimacy -- People high in Nint are more trusting, self-disclosing, and loyal to their friends than people low in Nint are.

• Relational self-construal – the extent to which we think of ourselves as interdependent, rather than independent, beings.– For those with a highly relational self-construal, relationships

are central to their self-concepts.– Being highly relational may make someone a desirable friend

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Friendship Difficulties

Shyness• Shy people worry about social disapproval.

• Shy people manage small talk poorly.

• Shy people behave in a timid manner, often making the negative impressions they hoped to avoid.

• Many shy people stay relaxed and interact comfortably with others when given an excuse for the interaction to go poorly, so they need greater self-confidence, not better social skills.

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Friendship Difficulties

Loneliness• Distress occurs when we want more, or more intimate, connections

with others.• Social isolation

• Emotional isolation

• Genetic influences

• Certain personalities

• Insecure attachment

• Low self-esteem

• Low expressivity

• Associated with negative attitudes; is unappealing to others.• However, loneliness can be overcome.• Hopeful attributions and reasonable expectations are helpful.

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For Your Consideration

Don and Teddi became best friends when they went through graduate school together. They started their studies the same year and took the same classes, and they worked together on several projects outside of class. They learned that they were both conscientious and clever, and they came to respect and trust each other completely. Each learned the other’s most intimate secrets. They also had great fun playing together. They were both nonconformists, and they shared a wry and offbeat sense of humor; they would frequently laugh at jokes that nobody else seemed to get. The night that Teddi finished her doctoral dissertation, they got drunk and almost had sex, but they were interrupted and the moment passed. Soon thereafter, they graduated and took jobs in different parts of the country; he moved to California and she went to Minnesota. Now, six years later, they have both married, and they see each other only every year or so at professional meetings.

What do you think the future holds for Don’s and Teddi’s friendship? Why?