The Development and Maintenance of Friendship

Abstract

A behavioural examination of friendship development is presented. First, the construction of the Friend Observation Checklist (FOC), a self-report behaviour checklist for assessing friendship behavioural exchange, is described. Second, a twelve-week longitudinal study of friendship development is reported. Seventy male and female college students, who were just beginning their first term of school, used the FOC to track the behaviours occurring in newly developing friendships. A three-month follow-up was also conducted. Dyads which successfully developed into close friendships showed different behavioural and attitudinal trends from dyads which did not become close friends. Both the dyads' breadth of interaction and the intimacy level of their interaction were positively correlated with ratings of friendship intensity. As the friendships progressed, the intimacy level of dyadic interaction accounted for an increasing percentage of the variance in friendship ratings, beyond that accounted for by sheer quantity of interaction. Dyadic behaviour patterns at the end of the fall school term were good predictors of friendship status three months later. The results were interpreted as supporting Altman E Taylor's social penetration theory, and confirming the value of a behavioural focus in studying friendship.