Conflict and Friendship - Literature review Example

Conflict and Friendship 2006 In this paper I will present the general overview of the existing literature on the topic of conflict and friendship. I will review the contemporary research findings in these psychological spheres. The first topic under discussion is the one of friendship. Many researchers maintain that there is a direct connection between the friendship characteristics and attachment style. One of the most important issues in these studies is the problem of security, which was defined by Bukowski / Bukowski, Hoza & Boivin, 1994/ the following way: “there is a general consensus among developmental psychologists that security is one of the most important properties of children and adolescents’ relationships with their friends”. For example, when compared with securely attached individuals insecurely attached persons usually display lower levels of companionship with their friends, lower security levels, which are reflected in lower expectations from the friendship to help to cope with difficulties, and higher conflict levels with the friends / Hazan & Shaver, 1987/ . There are also studies, which focused on the relation of attachment styles with sex differences. These studies have shown that women display higher levels of Companionship, Protection, and Affective Bond, which men showed Aid, Security, and Help / Saferstein, Neimeyer & Hagans, 2005/. Accorging to Bukowski et al. (1994) “one of the most persistent themes in the theoretical literature regarding children’s and early adolescents’ friendship relations is that these relations are affordances for feelings of acceptance, validation, and attachment”. So, attachment style theory suggests that attachments are generally described ob the basis of certain characteristics sex of the friend is among them. One more theory investigates the dependence between the family experiences of a child and its ability and success in building close relationships with its peers. Thus, the researchers of this sphere maintain that there is a direct link between the close parent-child relationships and the quality of friendships established by a child. Both attachment and social learning theories supported the findings that children with close relations confiding relations with their mothers possessed higher quality of friendships. The most prominent such dependence becomes in comparison with children from complex or stepmother families / Dunn, Davies, OConnor & Sturgess, 2001 /. However, there is the point where the supporters of this theory split. One believe that it is the personal characteristics of a child - sociability, trust, and social sensitivity – are the main driving motion for establishing close and warm relationships inside and outside the family. The others argue that it is the positive relations with the family members that open children more open hearted and friendly and able to build close and supportive friendship relations. Those children, who are often involved in conflicts among their parents, display less ability to build affectionate friendship relations due to their vulnerability and lack of self-confidence / Dunn, Davies, OConnor & Sturgess, 2001 /. The second group of researchers, who tried to show the dependence between family relations and peer relations, claim that vice versa children with negative family setting and bad relations with their mothers more readily find friends outside their families and build close and strong relations with their friends / Dunn, Davies, OConnor & Sturgess, 2001 /. Still the other group of researchers notices the dependence between children belonging to in single mother families and the quality of their friendship relations. In fact children from such families have fewer friendship contacts and experienced difficulties in communicating with their friends and bringing them home due to the greater involvement in family problems and duties. However on the other hand the qualitative characteristics of friendship of such children with their peers were quite the same as among children from complete families / Dunn, Davies, OConnor & Sturgess, 2001 /. It is a well-known fact that children establish friendship relations in early childhood on the basis of the time spent with other children and the nature of their mutual occupation. This leads to the fact that children, who spend relatively much time with one another and have common activities, are likely to become friends / Hartup, Laursen, Stewart & Eastenson, 1998/. On the other hand within friendship groups there exists much competition, which resu;ts from the children natural interdependency and their desire of rewards gaining. Naturally attainment of rewards by one child restricts the attainment of rewards of his/her friend. This complicated the nature of friendship relations. Numerous researcher noticed this dependence, the other researchers still argue that competition between friends develops only in certain situations /Berndt, 1985/. However, it should be kept in mind that the words conflict and competition are quite different. Competition does not necessarily imply conflict, which can be defined as “an opposition between two individuals, which arises when one person does something to which a second person objects” /Hay, 1984/. Due to the fact that children spend much more time with their friends, it is clear that friends are more frequently involved in children conflicts than casual people. Friendship conflicts are in some aspects similar and in other aspects differ from the conflicts with non-friends. What should be emphasized is that friends apply different strategies in conflict management than accidental associates. Arguments among friends are not so heated and are most frequently resolved through disengagement than it happens in non-friends conflicts. The disengagement does not effect the quantity and the time of children conflicts but children managed these conflicts in more reserved and calm way. Besides the friendship and conflicts among friends are characterized by greater level of equality than they are in non-friendship relations / Hartup, Laursen, Stewart & Eastenson, 1998/. Other researchers, who focused on the differences among friends and non-friends conflicts in middle childhood, came to the conclusion that conflicts, which occurred among friends happen more frequently last longer. Other researchers claim that in case of open-field settings, conflicts among friends are rarer and less intense with friends than conflicts with non-friends. Still the others came to the conclusion that in characterizing children conflicts we should take into account the opposition of setting conditions (open vs. closed) and the partnership opposition (friend vs. non-friend). However, this is for the time-being only a suggestion, not an established fact and therefore much research and study is still required to prove this hypothesis / Hahtup, French, Lauhsen, Johnston & Ogawa, 1993 /. When compared with the adult world, children have greater number of argument and disputes with their friends. The ways to solve such conflicts are also different. Boggs supports the idea that children very seldom are able to resolve their conflicts through conciliation. Parents and educators are much disturbed by the fact that even petty arguments between children always end up in the superiority on the one and inferiority of the other Boggs, 1978/ /. There are numerous studies which focused on the nature and characteristics of children argument with their peers. It was noticed that n different surroundings children perform differently. In one they indeed argued in the others preferred more compromising strategies of resolving conflict situations. So, the context of the conflict plays great role in children choice of its solving. This view is supported by the fact that in different relationships children prefer behavioral strategies / Dunnl & Herrera, 1997/. Much research is done on the study of the nature of conflict situation. Theses studies served a basis for the further research of the children strategies conflict management and provided necessary information for establishment of dependence between the conflict situation and behavior a child chooses for its management – either conciliatory or arguing type of behavior/ Dunnl & Herrera, 1997/. Many researchers proved that the type of behavior a child chooses depends greatly on the conflict partner. Thus, children manage conflicts differently with their friends and with their family members, which can be explained by the fact that the quality and amount of power in peer relations and in family relations differs considerably / Dunnl & Herrera, 1997/. One more aspect, which influences child’s behavior during the conflict situation, is the child’s emotional state. Children can act in the process of argument either in their own interests or for the sake of conciliation. It has been noted that in case children are angry or distressed they are more likely to use the behavior of reasoned argument. However, the other scholars consider that young children argue with particular force if they are upset and frustrated / Dunnl & Herrera, 1997/. Much research is done on the children reaction and responds to conflicts with their friends. It is proved that children’s responses to the situations, where conflicts of interests take place, are connected with one of the aspects of friendship adjustment – i.e. the level of conflict in the friendship. Some researches proved that there is a link not only between children’s goals and strategies but also between the goals and actual friendship adjustment. They also stress that children quite often apply revenge goals, which in their turn undermine the friendship. In fact, the Revenge goal has the influence on the index of friendship adjustment and Positive Friendship Quality. So, if a child uses revenge in conflict management, this has the most negative effect on the children friendship / Rose & Asher, 1999/. It should be mentioned that the child’s desire to revenge influences not only his present relations with the friends but also lead to the future problems with adjustment. Therefore it is important to learn more on the causes, which lead children to adoption of revenge goals, about the motives, which drive their behavior, which they apply revenge for conflict management. Theses studies may be useful to determine the ways of management of conflict situations and prevention of children to use revenge in conflict situations / Rose & Asher, 1999/.. Some researchers state that the desire of revenge can be generated by the child’s fear to be rejected. Thus, some children, who are particularly sensitive, interpret conflicts with their friend as if a friend rejects them. This leads to frustration, anger, scorn and desire for revenge / Rose & Asher, 1999/. It is also proved that the desire of revenge and antisocial ways of conflict management can be caused by the peer rejection and even in mild conflict situation a child, who feels unaccepted by the classmates, uses more severe strategies of conflict management / Rose & Asher, 1999/. There is some researches done on the influence of gender identity on strategies and goals, which children pursue in conflict situations. These researches proved that girls applied more prosocial goals and strategies than boys and possessed higher Positive Friendship Quality. This leads to the suggestion that girls are more satisfied with their friends and more skilled in friendship behaviors. On the other hand, there are still researches, which prove that in relations with best friends boys display more intimacy and satisfaction than girls / Rose & Asher, 1999/. Thus, it is important to study the ways in which children resolve conflicts with their friends. This is essentially because of several reasons. The first reason is to build predictions. Thus, children more often act to receive approval from their friends and therefore are less probable to change indiscriminately. Friends also proved to be more critical of each other and seek for mutual approval /Nelson & Aboud, 1985 /. The second goal of such studies is to clarify how friends influence on social development. It is proved that those children, who have many friends and qualitative friendship relations, display higher levels of altruism and are characterized by greater morality than children, who have no friends at all /Nelson & Aboud, 1985 /. However, the other researchers state that the connection is reverse. It is the ability to make friends that depends on the characteristics of a child as being socially developed. Thus, children, who posses good social qualities and display positive social behavior, tend to have more friends. Many researchers consider that even conflicts and discussion with a friend have positive effect on children development. They believe that conflicts lead to the development of more mature judgment /Nelson & Aboud, 1985 /. So, we can make a conclusion that friendship plays a very important role in the life a any child. It develops better social skills and psychological abilities. Many researchers view only exclusively positive sides of friendship. They stress only prosocial beneficial qualities of friendship for children development. However, the other scholars consider that it is important to view friendship in regard to the problems, which appear among friends namely competition and conflicts. On the basis of the researched material it is clear that there exist benefits from both harmonious relations among friends and conflicts, which all are important for the harmonious development of the child’s personality. References BERNDT, T. J (1985) Prosocial behavior between friends in middle childhood and adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence, 5, 307-318 BOGGS, S. (1978): The development of verbal disputing in part-Hawaiian children. Language and Society 7:325–344. BUKOWSKI, W., HOZA, B., and BOIVIN, M. (1994). Measuring friendship quality during pre- and early adolescence: The development and psychometric properties of the Friendship Qualities Scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 11, 471-484. DUNNL, J. and HERRERA, C. (1997). Conflict Resolution with Friends, Siblings, and Mothers: a Developmental Perspective. Aggressive Behavior, 23, 343–357. DUNN, J., DAVIES, L., OCONNOR, T. AND WENDY STURGESS (2001). Family Lives and Friendships: The Perspectives of Children in Step-, Single-Parent, and Nonstep Families. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, No. 2, 272-287 HARTUP, W. LAURSEN, B., STEWART, M. and EASTENSON, A. (1988). Conflict and the Friendship Relations of Young Children. Child Development, 59,1590-1600 HARTUP, W., FRENCH, D., LAUHSEN, B., JOHNSTON, M. and OGAWA, J. (1993). Conflict and Friendship Relations in Middle Childhood: Behavior in a Closed- Field Situation. Child Development, 64, 445-454. HAY, D. F. (1984). Social conflict in early childhood. Greenwich, CT.JAI. HAZAN, C, and SHAVER, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 (3), 511-524. NELSON, J. and ABOUD, F. (1985). The Resolution of Social Conflict between Friends. Child Development, 56, 1009-1017. ROSE, A. and ASHER, S. (1999). Childrens Goals and Strategies in Response to Conflicts within a Friendship. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1, 69-79. SAFERSTEIN, J., NEIMEYER, G. and CHAD L. HAGANS (2005). Attachment as a Predictor of Friendship Qualities in College Youth. Social Behavior and Personality, 33(8), 767-776. Read More