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Article Excerpt
Five groups of children were identified using friendship nominations from the fall and spring of their fifth-grade year: (1) children with a stable best friendship with the same child (same-stable); (2) children with a mutual best friendship at Times 1 and 2, but the best friend was a different child at each time (different-stable); (3) children with a best friendship at Time 1 but not at Time 2 (friendship loss); (4) children who had no best friendship at Time 1 but did have a best friendship at Time 2 (friendship gain); and (5) chronically friendless children. Peer nominations of psychosocial adjustment were gathered at both time points. The friendship gain group became less victimized and the friendship loss group became more victimized by Time 2. The two stable groups of children were rated as prosocial and popular, with low levels of aggression and victimization. Findings suggest that the consistency of having any best friendship across time may be as important to children's adjustment as same-friendship stability. The results of this study also highlight the importance of best friendship "renewal." The developmental significance of friendship has been well established in the peer relationship literature (for recent reviews see Rose & Asher, 2000; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Friendship involvement has been linked to indices of psychological well-being, such as self-esteem and positive feelings of self-worth (e.g., Hartup & Stevens, 1996; Bagwell, Newcomb, & Bukowski, 1998). Involvement in stable friendships has been associated with positive adjustment, such as school involvement and low levels of disruptiveness (Berndt & Keefe, 1995; Ladd, 1990).
Children who lack friends, as well as those who are rejected by the larger peer group, appear to be at risk for psychological maladaptation. In particular, researchers have demonstrated that the lack of a friendship can render a child particularly vulnerable to the effects of negative peer experiences. For example, Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, and Bukowksi (1999) found that friendship played a protective role in the relation between victimization and internalizing and externalizing problems among same-age children. Specifically, peer victimization predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing problems across the school year only for those children who lacked a mutual best friendship. Investigators have also shown that friendless children are likely to suffer from loneliness (Brendgen, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 2000; Parker & Asher, 1993) and a lack of social skills (Clark & Drewry, 1985). Chronic friendlessness during childhood has been associated with social timidity, sensitivity, and later internalizing problems (Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003; Parker & Seal, 1996).
Much recent attention has been devoted to children whose friendship patterns are stable or consistent over time (e.g., children with stable friendships and children who are chronically friendless). Many friendships, however, are neither static nor stable. Some children's friendships end after only a few months or over the course of a single school year (Cairns, Leung, Buchanan, & Cairns, 1995). Some children replace "lost" friendships with "new" friendships, whereas others do not. Such changes reflect unstable or fluid best friendship patterns and have received scant empirical attention. Given the many benefits of having best friends (Rose & Asher, 2000), it seems likely that changes in best friendship involvement may be related to children's psychosocial adjustment. Yet very little is known about the potential for temporal changes in best friendship involvement to influence children's adjustment.
Patterns in Best Friendship Involvement
It is likely that the world of children's friendships is more complex than typically portrayed in the peer relationships literature. For instance, during a single academic year, some children may consistently be involved in a mutual best friendship, albeit with different peers. That is, the child may have a mutual best friendship with one child during a fall semester and a mutual best friendship with a different child later in the spring semester. In this case, best friend involvement remains stable, although the identity of the best friend changes over time. The consideration of such a best friendship pattern raises a number of important questions, such as: How might the adjustment of children with stable best friendships with the same peer compare to that of children who have best friendships with different peers? Are the benefits of consistent best friendship involvement as great when the peer differs?
Friendship stability has been linked to friendship quality, both theoretically and empirically. It has been argued that the stability of friendships derives from the positive qualities of and the positive interactions between children (Berndt, 1999). In other words, friendships that are high in relationship quality will be more likely to persist over time. Supporting this contention, Ladd, Kochenderfer, and Coleman (1996) found higher levels of positive friendship qualities (e.g., validation) and lower levels of negative friendship qualities (e.g., low conflict) in stable friendships of kindergartners, relative to unstable friendships. The social support of a high-quality stable friendship has also been shown to be helpful for children during times of school transition (e.g., Berndt, Hawkins, & Jiao, 1999; Berndt & Keefe, 1995; Ladd, 1990).
In keeping with the existing literature on friendship stability, it is possible that changes in the identity of a best friend decrease the positive benefits of a consistent best friendship. It may be necessary to establish a dyadic relationship history in order to accrue the positive outcomes, qualities, and social support benefits of best friendship. To date, however, researchers have not compared the behavioral characteristics of those children who have varying friendship stability patterns, with the exceptions of a short-term summer camp study (Parker & Seal, 1996) and a study focused on friendship involvement during early childhood (Howes, 1983, 1988). Consequently, we know very little about possible differences between the "benefits" of stable best friendship involvement and the "benefits" of consistent best friendship involvement with different children.
In addition to the previously mentioned best friendship pattern, other best friendship patterns have received even less empirical attention. In some cases, children may be unable to replace a best friendship that is disrupted during the school year; other children who are initially friendless may gain a best friendship in the school months that follow. When friendships are assessed at a single time point, these aforementioned children would be classified as either having or not having a mutual best friendship, respectively. Such classifications, however, neglect important longitudinal changes in best friendship involvement and may inadvertently misconstrue the potentially influential events of friendship loss and friendship replacement on adjustment.
It is not uncommon for friendships to end or dissolve, particularly during childhood and early adolescence (Berndt & Hoyle, 1985). A lack of such relationship qualities as intimacy/closeness or mutual "liking" is connected with friendship dissolution (Berndt, Hawkins, & Hoyle, 1986), as are individual behavioral characteristics such as aggression (Hektner, August, & Realmuto, 2000; Ladd & Burgess, 1999). In fact, it has been suggested that termination is a normal, inevitable, and often desirable part of friendship development (e.g., Erwin, 1993). Given that friendship is based largely on individuals having similar characteristics as well as on propinquity and opportunities for interaction, it has been proposed that friendships should come and go as individuals develop new interests, competencies, and values. New friends may facilitate the development of new interests and perspectives, whereas older relationships that were productive and supportive in one environment may become less relevant or even disadvantageous to adaptation to new environments (Cairns et al., 1995). In certain cases, it seems likely that the loss of a specific friendship may be harmless if that friendship is replaced by a friendship with another child.
On the other hand, friendship dissolution may have serious consequences for some children. Disruptions of close peer relationships have been associated with depression, loneliness, physiological dysregulation, guilt, and anger (e.g., Laursen, Hartup & Keplas, 1996). In addition, friendship loss in preadolescence may be particularly painful due to the special role of friends' loyalty during this developmental period (Buhrmeister & Furman, 1987; Erwin, 1993).
Empirical research describing the concomitants of friendship loss is remarkably limited, and the extant findings are inconsistent. Researchers argue that being without a best friendship appears to "mark" some children as "easy targets," placing them at risk for victimization (Hodges et al., 1999). Thus, it seems likely that friendship loss (without replacement) may be associated with peer victimization. In the only studies in which the association between friendship and victimization has been explored, the measurement of friendship was static (Hodges et al., 1999); thus, it is not known, at this time, whether friendship loss during the course of a school year places children at risk for peer victimization or any negative outcome at all.
The primary objective of the present study was to examine fluid and stable best friendship patterns based on the notion that stability and change in best friendship involvement may be related to children's emotional and social functioning. Whereas the aforementioned Parker and Seal (1996) summer camp study focused solely on changing friendship networks, the present study was focused on children's best dyadic friendships during middle childhood. We chose such a focus because best or close friendships have been shown to have a greater influence on children's adjustment than other good (but not "best") friends or the larger peer group (Berndt, 1999; Urberg, 1992).
To accomplish our primary research aim, we contrasted five groups of best friendship patterns in fifth-grade children: (1) same-stable, children with a stable best friendship across the school year; (2) different-stable, children with a best friend in the fall and spring semesters of the school year but whose best friends differed at each time; (3) friendship loss, children with a best friend during the fall semester but without a best friend in the spring; (4) friendship gain, children without a best friend during the fall semester but with a best friend in the spring; and (5) chronically friendless children. We examined whether patterns of best friendship loss and best friendship replacement were associated with children's social and emotional adaptation and maladaptation.
As noted above, there has been only one published report of temporal patterns of friendships; in that study, participants were drawn from a short-term summer camp...
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