Many factors are indeed involved in the formation and development of friendships on important factors is Psychologists have observed that there is a difference in the type of friendships that are formed within different age groups Selman attempted to categorise these groups and came up with the following: - 0-2 Months Pre-attachment relationships with little or no discrimination between objects 2-6 Months infants now prefer human company and they can distinguish between Familiar and Unfamiliar people. 6 Months specific attachment preferences are shown and from 2 years onwards goal related friendships are made. However Selman’s categories’ are not clearly defined and they also overlap in places. Damon did a further study into age-related attachment patterns by looking at my best friend stories he found that those at older ages spoke more of loyalty while the younger children spoke of play friends and playing closer to home. Though these studies seemingly support Selman’s categorisation they are based upon retrospective data they may not be accurate as memory is not 100% reliable.
Secondly, sex differences have been said to affect the development of friendships Girls relationships have been said to be more intensive as they seem to prefer an emotional connection with another while boys’ relationships have been group related and they tend to focus more on the group than on individual cultivation of emotional relationships with one another. Benenson found that girls had more best friends but boys relationships lasted longer though girls were found to be more worried about the relationship. Secondly, Benenson did a further study into this by interviewing 10yr olds and asking them to rate on a scale important aspects of a friendship girls data revealed that they were more interested in intimate relationships where secrets can be shared. However interviews may prove to be subjective as a person may simply wish to conform to the group view rather than give an honest view. Though on the other hand this study has been very effective in demonstrating that sex also plays a part in the development of friendship.
It has been proposed that some children may just be naturally more popular than others and this affects their development of friendship. Within schools children have been found to possess different levels of popularity as some children have many friends and other children have no friends at all. Coie and dodge have identified 5 types of children these are popular, average, controversial, neglected and rejected. Rejected is further split into rejected-aggressive and rejected-withdrawn these are when in one scenario a child is to aggressive and irritates peers with this aggressiveness however in the other case a person is too shy and withdrawn and does not engage in group activity.
Causes have been identified for popularity
Similarity:- Children choose friends that are similar e.g. sex, and age. Unusual or deviant children will be excluded from this. Kandal found that friendships last longer if similarity is found.
Attractiveness:- Preference to attractive peers, this effects girls more than boys, it may be linked to status or 'being a good sport'
Personality:- Rejected children are often aggressive and disruptive Dodge found a link between personality traits and their popularity.
Early relationships: - According to IWMM, the earliest bonds act as the lead for future ones. It may be that unpopular and rejected children had unsatisfactory bonds and lack and appropriate internal working model.
Poor social skills.
Though granting great insight into the causes of popularity and rejection it is extremely difficult to assume a cause and effect relationship all evidence is correlation and thus one thing cannot be assumed to cause another. Schaffer suggests that it may be temperament and personality that cause popularity and rejection aggression would indeed be key to this the more aggressive a child is the more likely they are to experience rejection.
