This study compares same-sex friendships, cross-sex friendships and romantic
relationships in young adulthood in terms of the negative effects of various conflict
issues, the different conflict management strategies and relationship maintenance
strategies employed in these relationships, as well as the perceived rewards and
costs, the integration of the networks, and perceived overall quality. The main
purpose is to investigate cross-sex friendships and discern its similarities to and
differences from romantic relationships and same-sex friendships, as well as the
gender differences that emerge. Data is collected by means of questionnaires, from a
sample of 298 Middle East Technical University Students. Cross-sex friendships
were rated as the poorest relationship in terms of quality, rewards/costs, or the
frequency of maintenance behaviors and conflict occurred at very low levels in these
friendships. Women employed more relationship maintenance strategies in their
same- and cross-sex friendships compared to men. In addition, men preferred the
dominating and women the accommodating strategies of conflict management in
their same-sex friendships. It was concluded that same-sex friendships remain to be the accepted and approved form of friendship among this sample of Turkish young
adults and cross-sex friendships were distant and inferior to the other two
relationships. Finally, there were some differences across these relationships as to
what predicted relational quality, yet in general the rewards and maintenance
strategies predicted quality better than costs and conflict behaviors
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/4/12604934/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2003 |
| Creators | Cingoz, Banu |
| Contributors | Hortacsu, Nuran |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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