Friendship and Gender in Cultural-Psychological Perspective: Implications for Research, Practice, and Consultation

Abstract

Previous research documented differences in friendship such that people in various North American settings reported more friends, emphasized emotional support, and de-emphasized instrumental support relative to people in various West African settings. We used an experimental manipulation to test the hypothesis that these patterns reflect affordances for abstracted independence and embedded interdependence. Participants from universities in Ghana ( n = 67; 53% women) and the U.S.A. ( n = 71; 47% women) completed individual (“I am . . .”) or collective (“We are . . .”) versions of the Twenty Statements Test. They then completed measures of friendship experience. Results replicated cross-national differences and provided some evidence for hypothesized effects of the manipulation. Participants in the abstracted-independence condition reported “more friends than others” and (in the Ghanaian setting) emphasized emotional support over instrumental support to a greater extent than did participants in the embedded-interdependence condition. Discussion focuses on implications of international perspectives in psychology for research, practice, and consultation about relational belonging.