Poster #228 - Associations Between Friendship Quality and Theory of Mind

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Friendships are an important developmental context, buffering children against victimization and promoting positive social development (Newcomb, Bagwell, Bukowski, & Hartup, 1998). Elements of social cognitive development such as theory of mind (ToM) may be important in the development of friendships in childhood (Fink, Begeer, Peterson, Slaughter, & de Rosnay, 2014). This study investigated the association between friendship quality and ToM in middle childhood. Specifically, we were interested in whether one child’s ToM skill was associated with their close friend’s friendship quality. We also tested for gender differences in the association between ToM and friendship quality.
Participants were first- and second-graders (29 boys, 35 girls, mean age 6.5 years) who took part in the study with a close friend. Both children completed a battery of first- and second-order ToM tasks, including standard unexpected contents, change of location, and belief-desire reasoning tasks (e.g., Wimmer & Perner, 1983) and a measure of understanding sarcasm (Wellman & Liu, 2004). A total ToM score was calculated that was the sum of participants’ correct answers to the task questions. Participants also completed the Friendship Quality Questionnaire about their friendship with their close friend (Parker & Asher, 1993). The FQQ has subscales measuring validation and caring (10 items, α = .83), conflict resolution (3 items, α = .71), help and guidance (9 items, α = .85), companionship and recreation (5 items, α = .63), intimate exchange (6 items, α = .70), and conflict and betrayal (6 items, α = .74). Parents reported on the participants’ grades in language arts as a measure of verbal skill.
We conducted three sets of analyses. First, using a MANOVA, we investigated gender differences in the means for the total ToM score and the FQQ subscales. Significant gender differences were found for four of the FQQ subscales, but not for ToM (see Table 1). In all four cases, girls reported higher friendship quality than boys. Second, we calculated the correlations among the Friend 1 ToM score, Friend 2 ToM score, and the FQQ subscales. There was a significant positive correlation between Friend 1 and Friend 2’s ToM scores. Friend 1’s friendship quality was also associated with Friend 2’s ToM, in a negative direction. Specifically, Friend 2’s ToM was negatively correlated with Friend 1’s validation and caring, companionship and recreation, and intimate exchange (see Table 2).
Finally, we ran six hierarchical regression analyses predicting the FQQ subscale scores for Friend 1. Gender, Friend 1 ToM, and verbal skill were input (step 1), followed by Friend 2’s ToM (step 2). Significant variance was explained for validation and caring F(4, 30) = 3.23, p = .03, with an R2 of .30, as well as for conflict and betrayal, F(4, 30) = 3.97, p = .01, with an R2 of .35. For validation and caring, both gender (β = .40) and Friend’s ToM (β = -.40) were significant predictors. Conflict and betrayal was significantly predicted by both a child’s own ToM score (β = .31) and their verbal score (β = .40).

Authors

• Molly O'Mealey, University of Oklahoma
  Presenting Author

• Lara Mayeux, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author