Satisfying Friendship Maintenance Expectations: The Role of Friendship Standards and Biological Sex

Abstract

The ideal standards model predicts linear relationship among friendship standards, expectation fulfillment, and relationship satisfaction. Using a diary method, 197 participants reported on expectation fulfillment in interactions with one best, one close, and one casual friend (N = 591) over five days (2,388 interactions). Using multilevel modeling, our study found that hypothesized relationships were moderated by participant sex. For males, ideal standards had a curvilinear relationship with expectation fulfillment, where higher standards were associated with less fulfillment, but both expectation fulfillment and standards directly predicted satisfaction. For females, ideal standards linearly predicted expectation fulfillment, but an interaction between standards and fulfillment predicted satisfaction. Implications for the relationship between ideal standards and sex on friendship maintenance and satisfaction are discussed.

How many hours does it take to make a friend?

“…Shared self-disclosure is one of the final expectations to develop in friendship, both developmentally and temporally (La Gaipa, 1977). Close friends talk more often and in greater depth and affection than do casual friends (Hall et al, 2011;Hays, 1985). Casual friendships engage in constant low depth disclosure over the duration of the relationship (Hays, 1984;Hornstein & Truesdell, 1988).…”

Friendship standards: The dimensions of ideal expectations

“…In applying the Ideal Standards Model (ISM) (Fletcher, Simpson, Thomas, & Giles, 1999) to friendship, Hall et al (2011) turned to relational maintenance measures to conceptualize friendship standards.…”

“They can even make waiting in line fun”: A quantitative content analysis of autistic children's friendship conceptualizations

“…Exploring the particular features and characteristics that children look for in their friends is another way to gain insight into children's views on friendship. Friendship expectations are the core attributes and behaviors that children expect their friends to possess and enact (Hall, Larson, & Watts, 2011). Discerning what children expect from their friends can be a particularly useful framework for empirically investigating friendship in children, as this construct allows researchers to ask very specific questions about friendships which may be easier for children to answer than broad requests for definitions.…”