Return to search

Similarities Within Adolescent Friendship Pairs: The Relationship Between the Strength and Qualities of Friendship and the Individuals' Ego Identity Development

Current theory and research have suggested that adolescent friends share many similarities which range from strong similarities in sociodemographic variables to weaker correlations for personality characteristics. The goal of this study was to advance the base of knowledge related to similarities between friends by exploring relationships between early adolescent ego identity status and friendship strength, quality, and duration. First, the objective measure of Ego Identity Status was used to test the hypothesis that early adolescents in reciprocally identified friendship pairs are more similar in their ego identity status; no such relationship was found. Second, a measure designed to assess friendship qualities/strengths and duration lead to the conclusion that the quality/strength and duration of a friendship was also not associated with identity similarities. In addition, in-depth interviews of a subsample confirmed the findings associated with the full sample paper-pencil measures. Based on these findings, it appears that these early adolescents select friends who are not likely to operate within similar identity statuses.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-3537
Date01 May 1992
CreatorsAkers, James F.
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu).

Page generated in 0.0019 seconds