why bother making friends?

Running head: WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 1

Why Bother Making Friends? The Relationship Between Explanatory Style, Hope,

Friendship Quality, Friendship Development, and Social Interaction Anxiety

Peter Hurford

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 2

Abstract

While optimism has received a lot of study, few studies have looked at interpersonal

relationships or compared two different measures of optimism. In this study, it is

hypothesized that both explanatory style and hope will have positive correlations with

friendship quality, friendship development, and social interaction anxiety.

Questionnaires were given to college students and it was found that only the agency

subscale of hope had any correlation with friendship quality. Furthermore, neither hope

nor explanatory style correlated with friendship development and only explanatory style

and the pathways subscale of hope correlated with social interaction anxiety. The results

of this study lead to speculation that one has less friendship quality not because of any

particular behaviors one is or isn’t doing, but because less optimism leads one to just

think more negatively about one’s friends. This study then concludes with a call for

further research taking into account the findings and the methodological approach of

including multiple measures of optimism.

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 3 The Relationship Between Explanatory Style, Hope, Friendship Quality, Friendship

Development, and Social Interaction Anxiety

One’s optimism is the extent to which one sees the future in a positive in a

positive light and expects good things to come. However, deeper analysis into optimism

has found that while different measures all intend capture the same general concept, they

come to different results. Optimism initially was measured solely in terms of explanatory

style, which is a measure of what factors one habitually uses to explain negative events.

If one’s explanation is internal (placing blame on the self), global (expressing the cause

exists in all situations of one’s life), and stable (expressing the cause as unchangeable),

then one is considered to be more pessimistic (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). Later,

another measure was developed, called “hope”, which is the perception of (a) how one

can create pathways toward desired goals and (b) one’s agency to fulfill those pathways

(Snyder, 2002).

The differences between optimism and hope outline two key distinctions within

optimism. The first distinction is between what Peterson (2000) refers to as “big

optimism” versus “little optimism.” Explanatory style represents “little optimism” by

drawing conclusions from how one explains the origins of specific and concrete events.

Hope’s two subscales pulls it in both directions. The agency subscale, asking about how

much control one has over the future generally, is “big” optimism, focusing on optimism

about the broad future. The pathways subscale, however, is “little” optimism, focusing

on specific “pathways”, or methods of accomplishing a goal, to specific outcomes.

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 4 The second distinction, also noted by Peterson (2000) is that hope tends to be a

measure of optimism whereas explanatory style tends to be a measure of pessimism.

Hope focuses on how one sees oneself successfully accomplishing goals, which is viewed

in a positive light and thus is optimistic, whereas explanatory style dwells on explaining

bad events in negative ways and thus is pessimistic. While intuitively it seems that one

can’t think positively and negatively about the future simultaneously, it turns out that

optimism and pessimism are not actually mutually exclusive, as one can expect both a lot

of good things and bad things to occur in the future (Peterson 2000).

Explanatory style has usually been studied in relationship with health behaviors.

Those with more negative explanatory styles were found to have more frequent illnesses

over the past year (Lin & Peterson, 1989; Peterson, 1988), rate their overall health more

poorly, and be less likely to take steps to treat their illness when ill than their optimistic

counterparts (Lin & Peterson, 1989). They are also more likely to be at risk of depression

(Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Peterson & Seligman, 1984) and less likely to

handle stress well (Scheier & Carver 1992). However, it’s not clear whether this

connection is just between poor health and having a negative explanatory style.

Friedman & Booth-Kewley (1987) found no connection between negative explanatory

style and poor health, but did find a connection between positive explanatory style and

good health.

Explanatory style also relates to behaviors other than health. College students

with negative explanatory styles had lower academic performance, even after controlling

for initial ability and initial depression (Peterson & Barrett 1987). Furthermore,

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 5 pessimistic explanatory style was found to be linked with poor productivity and being

more likely to quit a job amid bad experiences (Seligman & Schulman, 1986).

Given that hope has been developed more recently, it has been studied with a lot

less frequency. However, hope has been found to be associated with general life

satisfaction (Bailey, Eng, Frish, & Snyder, 2007); increased hedonic well-being, or

feelings of pleasure in life; and increased eudemonic well-being, or feelings of

satisfaction (Gallagher & Lopez, 2009). Hope is also connected with specific measures

of health, such as lower risk of depression (Elliott, Witty, Herrick, & Hoffmin, 1991) and

stronger coping mechanisms (Irving, Snyder, & Crowson, 1998; Elliott, et. al. 1991).

Furthermore, hope also is connected with positive non-health outcomes, such as higher

athleticism (Curry, Snyder, Cook, Ruby, & Rehm, 1997) and higher grades (Curry, et. al.

1997).

Interpersonal relationships are also important for health and there is a connection

between having stronger and more relationships and better health and health behaviors

(Cohen, 1998). Furthermore, those with stronger and more relationships are less likely to

die overall (House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). Both hope and explanatory style have

also been connected with interpersonal relationships specifically. Geers, Reilley, and

Dember (1998) found that pessimistic people also tend to have pessimistic friends.

Scheier and Carver (1987) also proposed that the large amount of connections between

pessimissm and poor health is a result of pessimistic people having smaller friend groups

and thus less overall social support.

Research Goals and Hypotheses

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 6 The goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between optimism and

interpersonal relationships, namely amount and quality of non-romantic friendships,

friendship development, and social interaction anxiety. This study builds upon the

recommendations of Peterson (2000) by including both a measure of explanatory style

and a measure of hope and aims to explore both similarities and differences in the

connection of these two measures and interpersonal relationships. Based on previous

findings of fewer and less supportive social groups among pessimists (Scheier & Carver,

1987), it was hypothesized that a more pessimistic explanatory style would be correlated

negatively with quantity of friends and that increased hope will correlate positively with

quantity of friends.

Furthermore, it was hypothesized that quality of friends will also correlate

negatively with explanatory style and positively with hope. Given that explanatory style

is more general form of optimism, it was hypothesized that explanatory style will have a

stronger correlation with the measure of specific quality of friendships than with the

measure of general quality, since explanatory style is a more specific measure of

optimism and should therefore predict more specific outcomes rather than general ones

(Peterson, 2000). Likewise, hope, the more general form of optimism (Peterson, 2000),

was hypothesized to have a stronger correlation with specific quality than general quality.

It was also hypothesized that explanatory style will correlate negatively with a

measure of friendship development (how much one does to make new friends) whereas

hope will correlate positively, because pessimism about the ability to make friends should

lead one to withdraw from activities commonly used to make friends (Scheier and

Carver, 1987). Hope was expected to have a stronger correlation with friendship

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 7 development than explanatory style because the acquisition of friends involves specific

strategies, or pathways, which is unique to hope (Peterson, 2000). Furthermore, a higher

score pathways subscale is strongly related to being focused on accomplishing goals

(Snyder, et. al., 1991), such as meeting new friends.

Lastly, explanatory style was expected to correlate positively with interaction

anxiety, since people would be more anxious if they expected to be unsuccessful in their

interpersonal interactions. Likewise, hope was expected to correlate negatively with

interaction anxiety. Given that interaction anxiety is also a more general measure of

one’s ability to interact and does not involve drawing up specific plans, it was

hypothesized that here explanatory style would have a stronger correlation than hope.

Method

Participants

38 undergraduates (25 males and 13 females) at a small mid-western liberal-arts

college. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 21 (M=19.37, SD=.94) and included 25

Caucasians, 4 African Americans, 2 Asian Americans, and 7 Other. Participants enrolled

in this study either for fulfillment of an Introduction to Psychology class-credit and were

recruited via SonaSystems (N=27) or voluntarily at the personal request of one of the

researchers (N=11).

Materials

This study uses the Adult Hope Scale (Snyder, et. al., 1991) to assess hope

through subscales for both agency and pathways. Administered as “The Future Scale,” it

is a 12-item measure containing four filler items, four items assessing agency, and four

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 8 items assessing pathways. Participants respond to each item using an 8-point scale

ranging from “Definitely False” (1) to “Definitely True” (8). The agency subsection

includes questions are asked like “I energetically pursue my goals” whereas the pathways

subsection includes questions like “I can think of many ways to get out of a jam”. Scores

will range from 8 to 64, with higher scores indicating higher levels of hope.

The Attributional Style Questionaire (Peterson, Semmel, Von Baeyer, Abramson,

Metalsky, & Seligman 1982) was used to assess explanatory style and is administered as

the “Life Events Questionnaire (ASQ)”. It was a 48-item questionnaire that consisted of

12 hypothetical events, six of which were positive (e.g, “You meet a friend who

compliments you on your appearance”), and six of which were negative (e.g., “You have

been looking for a job unsuccessfully for some time”). Each event was followed by a

free response asking for the participant to speculate as to what might cause that event and

then three 7-point scale questions where the participant is asked whether that cause was

due to them or other people (“Totally due to other people or circumstances” as 1 to

“Totally due to me” as 7), “will never again be present” (1) vs. “will always be present”

(7), or whether it “influences just this particular situation” (1) vs. “influences all

situations in my life” (7). Scores were summed for the negative events and ranged from

18 to 126, with a higher value indicating a more pessimistic explanatory style.

The Social Interaction Anxiety scale (Mattick & Clarke, 1998) was used to assess

the amount of anxiety one felt in interpersonal relationships and was administered as the

“Social Interaction Scale”. It is a 20-item questionnaire that assesses how much a

participant believes a certain characteristic (e.g., “I get nervous if I have to speak with

someone in authority”) fits them. Responses were made on a 5-point scale, ranging from

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 9 “Not at all” (0) to “Extremely” (4). One question is dropped and two questions are

reverse coded. Total scores range from 0 to 76, with a higher score indicating more

interaction anxiety.

Lastly, a friendship questionnaire was designed for this study. There were four

subscales. The first was a 2-item subscale intended to measure quantity of friendships.

The first question asked for the number of good friends and the second question asked for

the participant to rate on a 7-point scale if they had more friends than the average person.

The second subscale had four items intended to measure general quality of relationships

(e.g., “How satisfied are you with your current friendships?”). Scores for general quality

range from 4 to 28 with higher scores indicating higher quality friendships. The third

was a 7-item subscale intended to measure specific quality of relationships (e.g., “How

comfortable are you talking about your bad experiences with your current friends?”).

Scores for specific quality range from 7 to 49 with higher scores also indicating higher

quality friendships. The fourth subscale was intended to measure friendship development

(e.g., “How often do you strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know in your

dorm?”). All subscales were answered on a 7-point scale, asking the participant to

answer the question from “Not at all” (1) to “Very often” (7). Scores for friendship

development range from 6 to 42 with higher scores indicating that the participant does

more to find new friendships.

Procedure

Participants were instructed to arrive in a particular room and were greeted by the

researcher. Participants were provided an informed consent form that told them the study

was designed to examine individual differences in social behaviors. They were also told

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 10 they would complete a series of questionnaires that would take approximately 15-30

minutes. They were told that responses would be anonymous and placed their

questionnaires in a box at the end of the study. They were informed that results would

only be analyzed at the group level and that no identifying information would be placed

on the questionnaire. They were asked to sign the informed consent form if they agree to

particpate.

After signing the informed consent form, participants were given a packet that

contained all four questionnaires (the ASQ, the AHS, the SIA, and the friendship

questionnaire) as well as some demographic questions asking about age, gender, and

race. They were instructed to read each instruction carefully and complete the

questionnaires on their own. To control for order effects, two different versions of the

questionnaire were created and distributed at random that were identical in every way.

The first version had the AHS first, followed by demographic questions, the ASQ,

questions about friendships, and the SIA. The second version had the ASQ, questions

about friendships, the SIA, and then the AHS, followed by demographic questions.

Upon completing the questionnaire and placing it in the box, participants were

given a debriefing form that outlined previous literature on the topic, the purpose of the

study, methods used, and contact information of the researchers.

Results

There were no differences between men and women, with the exception of

number of friends. A Student’s t test was used to compare men and woman on number of

friends, and it was found that men (M=23.77) have more number of friends (t(36) = 2.80,

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 11 p<.001) than women (M=9.08). When one outlier was removed (a male with 100

friends), men (M=17.42) still had more friends than women (M=9.08) (t(35) = 19.14,

p<.001).

To test the hypotheses, a series of Pearson’s r correlation tests were used, with

results in Table 1. While it was hypothesized that explanatory style would correlate

negatively with number of friends and hope would correlate positively, it turned out that

there was a nonsignificant correlation with explanatory style, r(36) = -.12, p=.47, and a

nonsignificant correlation with hope, r(36) = -.17, p=.32. For the other measure of

number of friends, there was a nonsignificant, positive correlation between explanatory

style and a rating of how many friends they had compared to others, r(36) = .02, p=.90

and a nonsignificant, positive correlation between hope and the rating, r(36) = .10, p=.56.

However, there was a significant, positive, weak correlation between the agency subscale

of hope and a rating of number of friends as compared to other people, r(36) = .33,

p=.042. Specifically, higher agency was related to a higher rating of number of friends as

compared to other people.

For friendship quality, a significant, positive, moderate correlation was found

between hope and a measure of general friendship quality, r(36) = .50, p=.001 with

higher hope scores were related to higher measures of general friendship quality.

Furthermore, there was a significant, positive, and moderate correlation between hope

and the measure of specific friendship quality, r(36) = .46, p=.004, with higher hope

scores were related to higher measures of specific friendship quality. Additionally, hope

correlated more strongly with specific quality than general quality. However,

correlations with explanatory style and general friendship quality were nonsignificant

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 12 (r(36) = -.10, p=.56). Furthermore, explanatory style had a nonsignificant relationship

with friendship quality, r(36) = -.04, p=.79.

For both specific friendship quality, there was a significant, positive, and

moderate correlation with the agency subscale of hope, r(36) = .58, p<.001. Also, there

was a significant, positive, and moderate correlation with the agency subscale of hope

and general friendship quality, r(36) = .58, p<.001. Higher agency was related to higher

measures of both specific and general friendship quality. For the pathways subscale, the

correlation was nonsignificant and positive for general friendship quality, r(36) = .25,

p=.13, and for specific quality, r(36) = .16, p=.35.

For social interaction anxiety, there was a significant, positive, and weak

correlation with explanatory style, r(36) = .34, p=.035. More pessimistic explanatory

style was related to higher levels of social interaction anxiety. Hope however had a

significant, negative, weak correlation between hope and social interaction anxiety, r(36)

=-.36, p=.029. There was a significant, negative, and weak correlation with the pathways

subscale and social interaction anxiety, r(36) = -.36, p=.025, with higher pathways score

relating to lower social interaction anxiety. There also was a nonsignificant, negative,

weak correlation with the agency subscale and social interaction anxiety, r(36) = -.31,

p=.06.

Lastly, friendship development had no significant relationships with either

measure of optimism. There was a nonsignificant, positive correlation with explanatory

style and development, r(36) = .19, p=.24, and a nonsignificant, negative correlation

between hope and a measure of friendship development, r(36) = -.08, p=.64. There also

was a nonsigificant relationship with the pathways subscale and friendship development,

WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 13 r(36) = .047, p=.78. There also was a nonsigificant and negative relationship with the

agency subscale and friendship development, r(36) = -.21, p=.22.

Discussion

The data in this study does confirm that one’s optimism does correlate with one’s

feelings about quality of friendship and one’s social interaction anxiety. However, it was

hope, and specifically the agency subscale, which was connected with friendship quality,

demonstrating that perhaps friendships are maintained only when one thinks that one will

be successful. But just as importantly, the lack of a connection with the pathways

subscale indicates one’s friendship quality is not correlated with specific plans about how

to increase one’s friendship. This is also seen in the lack of a connection between hope

and friendship development.

As expected, hope, or more specifically the “agency” subscale of hope, was

connected with friendship quality. This is consistent with Scheier and Carver (1987)’s

finding that those with lower hope tended to have lower social support. However,

explanatory style had no connection with friendship quality. This finding, while

unexpected, makes sense in the context of “big” vs. “little” optimism. Peterson (2000)

points out that different aspects of one’s life would be affected by “big” optimism and

other aspects would be affected by “little” optimism. For example, certain diseases might

be connected with optimism because they attack mood and lower “big” optimism

whereas other diseases might be connected with optimism because a lack of “little”

optimism undermines the maintenance behaviors needed to avoid being sick.


On the other hand, explanatory style and the “pathways” subscale of hope, but not

the “agency” subscale, was connected with social interaction anxiety. This also has a

potential explanation in the “big” vs. “little” dichotomy. Those with a more pessimistic

explanatory style and a lower score on the “pathways” subscale lack “little” optimism,

and therefore lack confidence in their ability to achieve specific goals. The ability to

hold a successful conversation with someone, something that low social interaction

anxiety would predict, is something specific that one would expect to connect with a

more specific measure of optimism (Peterson, 2000) like hope, rather than a more general

measure like explanatory value.

In this study, since causality is unknown it cannot be made clear whether lower

optimism is causing one to think worse about one’s friends, whether worse connection

with ones friends breeds lower optimism, whether both are caused by some third

“hidden” variable, or some combination of those three explanations is at play. However,

Peterson (2000)’s two theories of how optimism can connect with certain bad events –

either the bad event undermines optimism perhaps through a change in mood or a lack of

optimism undermines the maintenance behaviors needed to keep the bad event from

happening. For example, the connection between life satisfaction and optimism might be

because of the first theory (Bailey, Eng, Frish, & Snyder, 2007; Gallagher & Lopez,

2009), whereas Lin & Peterson (1989) found that disease might be connected to

pessimism because of the second theory. Speculating beyond the data available, perhaps

it is the case that since more “big” optimism connects with higher friendship quality and

more “little” optimism does not, it is one’s optimism that is causing one to think worse

about one’s friends.


This study was limited selection bias in the recruitment of participants. Not only

were there few participants, but participants were constrained by their age given that only

college students were recruited, and constrained by their enrollment in Introduction to

Psychology. Furthermore, the selection pool is further biased because any voluntary

study about personality will be affected by only recruiting the kinds of personalities that

would take studies. With SonaSystems, Introduction to Psychology students are taking

studies for course credit, but can do so anytime throughout the course, and thus only

those types of people who would want to get their credit out of the way early are doing so

now. Lastly, not enough SonaSystems students were recruited and researchers had to

recruit their friends, which introduces additional sample bias arising from non-random

selection from a limited pool. Future research could address these problems with

selection bias by recruiting more participants, recruiting outside SonaSystems, and

avoiding the need for non-random selection from friends, perhaps by offering the

opportunity to enroll in the study more widely and offer monetary compensation for

participation.

Further research could help explore the connection between optimism, feelings

about one’s friends, and maintenance behavior more in depth. While behavior in this

study was probed with questions about friendship development, there were no questions

about to what extent one attempts to maintain existing friendships, such as seeking to

spend time with friends. Given that the connection with “big” optimism and not with

“little” optimism leads to speculation that the connection is based on one’s feelings about

friends and not one’s specific behaviors, it would be hypothesized that maintenance of

existing friendships also would not correlate with either explanatory style or hope.


One could further assess behavior by asking participants to simply self-report how

much attention or time they put into developing new relationships and maintaining

existing ones. More care could be given to this measure by moving beyond self-reports

to include reports of those in one’s friend group. If a group of friends all have differing

opinions about the quality of that group, then this would cast further doubt on there being

an objective assessment of friendship quality.

Additionally, one could get a more robust view of optimism by looking at yet

more measures of optimism. Perhaps one could make use of dispositional style, the most

“big” or general of measures of optimism, which simply gauges how one expects the

future to be without any analysis of specific situations (Peterson, 2000; Scheier & Carver,

1992). If this measure also correlates with friendship quality but additional “little”

measures like one’s optimism about specific situations (such as finding good parking

spaces) do not, then there is further support for the “big” vs. “little” divide in friendship.

It would be hypothesized that dispositional style would correlate with friendship quality.

Lastly, one could address the problem with causality by employing regression

analysis specifically looking at the impact of optimism while controlling for other factors

like different aspects of feelings about friends and friendship development. Perhaps a

longitudinal study could track changes in optimism and see if these come before or after

changes in feelings about ones friendships. Perhaps one could also employ an

experimental method by using priming to temporarily alter an experimental group’s

feelings of optimism and see if that alters their self-perception of friendship quality

relative to a control group not primed.


Overall, this study confirms the need to look at the connection between friendship

and optimism in more depth. Additionally, it confirms Peterson (2000)’s call for using

multiple measures when looking at optimism. This study wouldn’t have nearly as

complete of a picture if it had used only explanatory style or only hope. However, it’s

unclear what this study means for trying to improve one’s friendships. While there is

some evidence that optimism can be learned (Hall, Hladkyj, Perry, & Ruthig, 2004), it is

not clear whether learning optimism would be enough to decrease social interaction

anxiety or improve one’s perception of his or her friends.

Conclusion

Of course, the actual nature of why one feels about one’s friends is complex. This

study supports a connection between friendship and optimism, but only some kinds of

optimism – the concept generally captured by the agency subscale of “hope”. This

suggests that perceiving oneself as having quality friendship is connected with having

generally positive feelings about the overall future rather than taking steps to make new

friends or having specific pathways to make new friends, which is certainly counter-

intuitive. Additionally, this study finds that social interaction anxiety is connected with

less confidence in one’s ability to execute goals, which could mean that social interaction

anxiety is indicative of a broader problem of confidence. Therefore, one’s ability to

engage with and maintain quality friendships spans two different types of optimism and

merits more careful study.


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WHY BOTHER MAKING FRIENDS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP 21 Table 1

Correlations Between Measures of Optimism and Friendship Variables Explanatory Style Hope Hope - Agency Hope - Pathways

Number of Friends -.12 -.17 .06 -.09

Rating of Friends .02 .10 .33* -.15

General Friendship Quality

-.10 .50** .58*** .25

Specific Friendship Quality

-.04 .46** .58*** .13

Friendship Development

.19 -.08 -.20 .05

Social Interaction Anxiety

.34* -.36* .31 -.36*

*p≤.05, ** p≤.01, *** p≤.001