Friendship

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Building friendships in childhood can help develop social skills like empathy and openness.

The understanding of friendship by children tends to be focused on areas such as common activities, physical proximity, and shared expectations.[3]^: 498[lower-alpha 1] Such friendships provide opportunity for playing and practicing self-regulation.[4]^: 246 Most children tend to describe friendship in terms of things like sharing, and children are more likely to share with someone they consider to be a friend.[4]^: 246[5][6] As children mature, they become less individualized and are more aware of others. They gain the ability to empathize with their friends, and enjoy playing in groups. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. Establishing good friendships at a young age helps a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life.[5]

Based upon the reports of teachers and mothers, 75% of preschool children had at least one friend. This figure rose to 78% through the fifth grade, as measured by co-nomination as friends, and 55% had a mutual best friend.[4]^: 247 About 15% of children were found to be chronically friendless, reporting periods of at least six months without mutual friends.[4]^: 250

Friendships in childhood can assist in the development of certain skills, such as building empathy and learning different problem solving techniques.[7] Coaching from parents can help children make friends. Eileen Kennedy-Moore describes three key ingredients of children's friendship formation: (1) openness, (2) similarity, and (3) shared fun.[8] Parents can also help children understand social guidelines they have not learned on their own.[9] Drawing from research by Robert Selman[10] and others, Kennedy-Moore outlines developmental stages in children's friendship, reflecting an increasing capacity to understand others' perspectives: "I Want It My Way", "What's In It For Me?", "By the Rules", "Caring and Sharing", and "Friends Through Thick and Thin."[11]

Two friends sitting together in Bhutan

In adolescence, friendships become "more giving, sharing, frank, supportive, and spontaneous." Adolescents tend to seek out peers who can provide such qualities in a reciprocal relationship, and to avoid peers whose problematic behavior suggests they may not be able to satisfy these needs.[12] Particular personal characteristics and dispositions are also features sought by adolescents, when choosing whom to begin a friendship with.[13] During adolescence, friendship relationships are more based on similar morals and values, loyalty, and shared interests than those of children, whose friendships stem from being in the same vicinity and access to playthings.[4]^: 246

A large study of American adolescents determined how their engagement in problematic behavior (such as stealing, fighting, and truancy) was related to their friendships. Findings indicated that adolescents who were less likely to engage in problematic behavior had friends who did well in school, participated in school activities, avoided drinking, and had good mental health. The opposite was true of adolescents who did engage in problematic behavior. Whether adolescents were influenced by their friends to engage in problem behavior depended on how much they were exposed to those friends, and whether they and their friendship groups "fit in" at school.[14]

Friendships formed during post-secondary education last longer than friendships formed earlier.[15] In late adolescence, cross-racial friendships tend to be uncommon, likely due to prejudice and cultural differences.[13]

Friendship in adulthood provides companionship, affection, and emotional support, and contributes positively to mental well-being and improved physical health.[16]^: 426

Adults may find it particularly difficult to maintain meaningful friendships in the workplace. "The workplace can crackle with competition, so people learn to hide vulnerabilities and quirks from colleagues. Work friendships often take on a transactional feel; it is difficult to say where networking ends and real friendship begins."[17] Many adults value the financial well-being and security that their job provides more than developing friendships with coworkers.[18]

Freundschaft zwischen Jonathan und David by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld (1860), which translates in English as Friendship between Jonathan and David

2,000 American adults surveyed had an average of two close friends, defined as "people they had 'discussed important matters' with in the past six months".[19] Numerous studies with adults suggest that friendships and other supportive relationships enhance self-esteem.[20]

Older adults report high levels of personal satisfaction in their friendships as they age, even as the overall number of friends tends to decline. This satisfaction is associated with an increased ability to accomplish activities of daily living, as well as a reduced decline in cognitive abilities, decreased instances of hospitalization, and better outcomes related to rehabilitation.[16]^: 427 The overall number of reported friends in later life may be mediated by increased lucidity, better speech and vision, and marital status.[21]^: 53 A decline in the number of friends an individual has as they become older has been explained by Carstensen's Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, which describes a change in motivation that adults experience when socializing. The theory states that an increase in age is characterized by a shift from information-gathering to emotional regulation; in order to maintain positive emotions, older adults restrict their social groups to those with whom they share an emotional bond.[22] As one review phrased it:

Research within the past four decades has now consistently found that older adults reporting the highest levels of happiness and general well being also report strong, close ties to numerous friends.[23]

As family responsibilities and vocational pressures lessen, friendships become more important. Among the elderly, friendships can provide links to the larger community, serve as a protective factor against depression and loneliness, and compensate for potential losses in social support previously given by family members.[24]^: 32–33 Especially for people who cannot go out as often, interactions with friends allow for continued societal interaction. Additionally, older adults in declining health who remain in contact with friends show improved psychological well-being.[25]

People with certain types of developmental disorders may struggle to make and maintain friendships. This is especially true of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),[30] autism spectrum disorders,[31] or children with Down syndrome.[32][33]

Lack of friendship plays a role in increasing risk of suicidal ideation among female adolescents. This is also true for having more friends who are not themselves friends with one another. However, no similar effect was observed for males.[36] Having few or no friends is a major indicator in the diagnosis of a range of mental disorders.[12]

Higher friendship quality directly contributes to self-esteem, self-confidence, and social development.[20] A World Happiness Database study found that people with close friendships are happier, although the absolute number of friends did not increase happiness.[37] Other studies suggested that children who have friendships of a high quality may be protected against the development of certain disorders, such as anxiety and depression.[38] Conversely, having few friends is associated with dropping out of school, as well as aggression, adult crime, and loneliness.[3]^: 500 Peer rejection is also associated with lower later aspiration in the workforce and participation in social activities, while higher levels of friendship were associated with higher adult self-esteem.[3]^: 500–01

Having more close friends is correlated with improved mental health and cognitive ability. However, this association stops once around five friends is reached, after which having more friends is no longer linked to better mental health and is correlated with lower cognition. Additionally, people with few or many friends had more symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and were less able to learn from their experiences.[39]

In general, girl-girl friendship interactions among children tend to focus on interpersonal connections and mutual support. In contrast, boy-boy interaction tends to be more focused on social status, and may discourage the expression of emotional needs.[43] Girls report more anxiety, jealousy, and relational victimization and less stability related to their friendships. Boys, on the other hand, report higher levels of physical victimization. Nevertheless, boys and girls tend to report relative satisfaction levels with their friendships.[4]^: 249–50

Women tend to be more expressive and intimate in their same-sex friendships and have a smaller range of friends.[13] Men are more likely to define intimacy in terms of shared physical experiences. In contrast, women are more likely to define it in terms of shared emotional ones. Men are less likely to make emotional or personal disclosures to other men because the other man could use this information against them. However, they will disclose this information to women (as they are not in competition with them), and men tend to regard friendships with women as more meaningful, intimate, and pleasant. Male-male friendships are generally more like alliances, while female-female friendships are much more attachment-based. This also means that the end of male-male friendships tends to be less emotionally upsetting than that of female-female friendships.[44]

Women tend to be more socially adept than their male peers, among older adults. As a result, many older men may rely upon a female companion, such as a spouse, to compensate for their comparative lack of social skills.[23]^: 55 One study found that women in Europe and North America were slightly more likely than men to self-report having a best friend.[45]

Which relationships count as a true friend, rather than as an acquaintance or a co-worker, vary by culture. In English-speaking cultures, it is not unusual for people to include weaker relationships as being friends.[46] In other cultures, such as the Russian and Polish cultures, only the most significant relationships are considered friends. A Russian might have one or two friends plus a large number of "pals" or acquaintances; a Canadian in similar circumstances might count all of these relationships as being friends.[46]

In Western cultures, friendships are often seen as lesser to familial or romantic relationships.[47] Friendships in Ancient Greece were more utilitarian than affectionate, being based upon obligation and reliance, though they held a broad view on the variance of friendship.[48][49] Aristotle wrote of there being three kinds of friendships: those in recognition of pleasure, those in recognition of advantage, and those in recognition of virtue.[49]

When discussing taboos of friendship it was found that Chinese respondents found more than their British counterparts.[13]