Poster #230 - The Function of Friends, Gender, & Adolescent Academic and Social Outcomes in China

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Background. Friendship can be thought of as having two basic functions: instrumental and emotional. This dichotomy was created as part of an early approach to traditional gender roles (Parsons & Bales, 1955), with the emotional aspect of friendship stereotyped as “feminine” and the instrumental stereotyped as “masculine” (Wood & Inman, 1993). Research on the effects of friendship has generally focused on the emotional components of friendship and not on the instrumental components. The present study aimed to explore the association between both components of friendship and academic and social outcomes for Chinese adolescents. China is an interesting location to study these gendered concepts given the tension between traditional Chinese gender norms and encroaching European and American gender values.

Methods. We drew on data from a longitudinal project on child development and parenting in China (Way et al., 2013), using surveys from 710 urban Chinese adolescents (N=710, 50% girls). To measure friend function priority, adolescents were asked to identify the most important role they thought a friend could play from an 8-item list. That item was then coded into one of four categories: 3 instrumental (School Help, Play, Guanxi) and 1 emotional. Other measures included friendship support from the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman & Buhrmester, 2009), and adherence to masculinity (Gupta et al., 2013). Exam scores for select academic subjects were collected directly from schools.

Preliminary Results. 1) Both girls and boys prioritized emotional aspects of friendship over instrumental aspects of friendship, with 75% of girls and 54% of boys saying that was the most important reason for having friends. However, girls did rank emotional items as most important significantly more often than their male peers (t(655.19)=5.49, p<.001). Boys also chose play (t(530.11)=-5.61, p<.001) and guanxi (t(441.06)=-3.392, p<.01) items as top friend functions significantly more than girls did. There was no gender difference in rate of school help prioritization in friendships, which was second most popular top priority for both genders.

2) Prioritizing instrumental friendship functions were generally associated with lower friendship support and lower academic scores for girls, but there was no relationship for boys. Prioritizing emotional friendship functions was associated with increased friendship support and better grades for girls, again with no relationship for boys. Prioritizing guanxi was not associated with any outcomes, though this was likely due to the small number of participants selecting guanxi as their first priority.

3) Boys and girls had significantly different levels of masculinity, with boys exhibiting more masculine behavior (t(658.34)=-3.74, p<.001). Play and emotional friend functions were significantly associated with masculinity for boys, but not for girls.

Next Steps. These initial findings were the result of a cross-sectional exploration. As a next step, we will use longitudinal data to try and determine whether causal links can be drawn between friend function and friendship and emotional outcomes, and whether masculinity plays a mediating role in that relationship. Results and implications will be discussed.

Authors

• Courtney Jones, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Rui Yang, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Niobe Way, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hiro Yoshikawa, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xinyin Chen, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author