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\shorttitle{Article Review I}
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\begin{document}
\centerline{\textbf{Article Review I: A Longitudinal Study of Friendship
Development}}
Social psychologists want to understand how relationships actually
develop.
Researchers have already studied artificial bonding situations in
labs with much less time for participants to form a connection between
each other, so we don't understand what factors allow a friendship to
progress.
Understanding these factors is important to clinical and positive
psychologists so we can help healthy, fulfilling relationships form.
In 1985, Robert Hays asked these questions in a study of college
freshmen's same-sex relationships.
His work engages with existing psychological theories of relationship
development which consider costs and benefits to be the main deciding
factors in whether a relationship survives or not.
However, psychological doctrine is very vague on if relationship costs
strengthen or weaken a growing relationship, so this study investigated
that debate too.
The methodology was a series of surveys, spaced by 3 weeks, on various
friendship indices (whether a relationship took up a lot of
time/emotional energy, how intimate vs superficial interactions were,
and various situational factors), with a 3-month followup on the
relationship status \autocite{friendship}.
Hays hypothesises that situational and behavioral factors will have
outsized impacts on the success or failure of a new relationship, and
theorizes that relationship costs have some effect on the success of the
relationship.
Relationship costs were found to have no significant effect on the
success of the relationship.
The study operationally defines relationship costs as factors (like time
spent, emotional effort, aggravation) that were mostly rated negatively
in surveys of subjects, and did not find relationship costs to be a
differing factor between close and nonclose dyads.
However, the study analyzed an array of other factors.
Self-ratings of a relationship was one of the best predictors, with an
$r=.78$ value even comparing a 6-weeks rating to the followup 5 months
later.
According to Hays, ``6 weeks may be sufficient for individuals to
reliably estimate their friendship potential''
\autocite[910]{friendship}
Hays also investigated physical distance between the dyad's places of
residence, the behavior categories that interactions fell into
(superficial vs casual vs intimate interactions), self-survey
ratings of closeness, and the sheer amount of time spent together.
These are the independent variables of the observational study, and the
dependent variable measured was successful development of the
friendship, or, operationally, a high closeness rating on the followup
survey.
Hays predicted that the sheer amount of time spent together would
increase the chance of a close friendship forming, but the size of the
time-together effect was fairly small, except it had larger effects for
already close friends and some sex differences.
Extremely important, in fact, were self-survey ratings of closeness in
the relationship, and secondly, the level of intimacy the dyad reached.
Feeling close and reporting deep relationships correlated with progress
at the final followup survey.
Hays notes that the results confirm parts of social penetration theory
and social exchange theory.
Social penetration theory is supported by broad (large amounts of time)
and deep (intimate/casual) interactions correlating with a progressing
dyad.
With respect to social exchange theory, a relationship with lots of
benefits was much more likely to progress than one without, but costs
(time spent, emotional effort, negative effect on self, etc.) were not
significantly different between close and nonclose dyads.
Finally, Hays notes that there were sex differences between dyad
progress, but these were mostly ``stylistic rather than substantial''
\autocite[923]{friendship}.
For example, female dyads were much more likely to engage in casual and
intimate affection earlier in the relationship.
However, the study concludes that its results are not extremely
generalizable.
Other social contexts than the college dorm probably do not permit as
intense or fast development of a relationship, the study's results don't
necessarily generalize to other universities' social environments, so
much further research is required in different social environments.
\iffalse
- Hypothesis
- IV/DV
- Results
- Conclusions
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\end{document}
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