A developmental study of adolescents friendship:quality of the relationships

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Adeleh Samimi ¹ , Ali Mazaheri ² , Mahmood Heidari ³

1 - MA in Clinical Psychology of Child & Adolescent
2 - PhD Shahid Beheshti University
3 - PhD Shahid Beheshti University

Received: 2015-06-02 Accepted : 2015-06-02 Published : 2012-09-22

Keywords: adolescents, quality of relationship, same- sex friends, opposite- sex friends,

Abstract :

The current research was a developmental study of the quality of adolescent relationships with the same and opposite sex friends. 182 boys and girls adolescents aged 13, 15 and 17 studying in the academic year of 2010-2011 were selected based on available sampling from Tehran and responded to the Network of Relationship Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmster, 1985). Data analysed using MANOVA and ANOVA demonstrated that girls reported affection and disclosure as the most important quality in their friendship with same-sex ones and affection and companionship with opposite-sex ones. For boys the most important quality in their friendship with the same-sex was reported as companionship and nurturance and with opposite-sex affection and nurturance. In both groups of adolescents the quality of relationship with the same- sex was significantly affected by age and gender, while the effect of age on the quality of relationship with the opposite-sex was not significant. Furthermore adolescents without opposite-sex friends showed better relationship quality with their fathers than their peers with opposite-sex friends.