Mel Reichler , Associate Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Queens College, Flushing, 11367, NY, NY
mwl@nyc.rr.com
Written by Mel Reichler Copyright 2002
A theory of Friendship I
We lack both an integrated theory of friendship and a framework within which such a theory could be constructed. Contributions to an understanding of friendship have been made by sociologists, anthropologists psychologists and social psychologists . Merton and Lazarsfeld ( ),Rieger-Schlonsky (1969), Litwack (1961,1969), and Naegele(1958), among others, have approached friendship from a sociological point of view. Utilizing traditional sociological concepts and focusing on norms, values and social structure they have shown how social arrangements pervade personal relationships. Newcomb (1961)from the point of view of a social psychologist has looked at the friendship process. Paine (1969,1974) and Brain (1976) have developed approaches to friendship from the position of anthropology. From psychological perspectives, Duck(1973,1975) and preeminently Wright (1974,1978 ) have explored the dynamics of friendship.(A number of other contributions exist which are relevant to a theory of friendship ( see Kurth (l970) Suttles (l970) Kon and Losenkof (l978) )
Little attempt has been made to integrate this work in a way that contributions from different disciplines can be seen as parts of a potentially coherent theory. Such a framework is essential for another reason. Without it, studies done within each separate discipline result in misleading and incomplete representations of friendship. In the absence of such a integrating framework,even those aspects of friendship that do fall with a domains field of interest.
The sociologically and anthropologically oriented theorists (Paine and Naegele for instance ) are unable to explain the composition (configuration of characteristics ) of the friendship relationship.
The patterning of the friendship relationship is constrained by social structure of the society within which it appears. But a second source of constraints exists: the character of the mechanisms and processes within the individual, in terms of which the relationship works.(Blau, l983) @1
For Paine and Naegele, the composition of friendship is a given and can be dealt with only descriptively. Because they lack a psychological theory they are unable to explain the composition of the role. This can be illustrated by looking at two key characteristics they associate with friendship,trust and the revocability of friendship. Assuming the accuracy of much psychological theorizing on frien dship (Wright's work for instance) revocability is significant because it conditions the way in which people must reward each other in friendship. To permit another to change their mind without consequences other than those from the relationship itself means that the participants in the relationship must attend carefully to the exchange, to what they are giving and getting (cf Goffman,????). Under these conditions trust is essential in friendship. Trust is critical,as we argue below, because it is only as each participant is truthfully representing what he is she is getting from the relationship that each can simultaneously maximize his or her ability to control the relationship.
Psychological theorists, on the other hand suffer because they can not explain many of the properties of friendship as a relationship. Wright, for instance, who has developed the most comprehensive psychologically based theory of friendship lacks a picture of the self as a socially conditioned object whose attributes are derived from the social system.
Wright focuses almost exclusively on the self as a psychological structure. But the capacity of another to provide one with rewards, depends on the social characteristics of the other, not simply on their psychological characteristics. How worthwhile another's evaluations are, determines in part their reward potential The rewardingness of another's evaluation of ones self depends on their social status, on their worth as a possible evaluator not merely on the act of affirmation. Hence Wright can not explain important aspects of friendship, i.e., why friendships are most often between equals.
In this paper we attempt to integrate the contributions from a number of theorists into a coherent theory of friendship. While none of the hypotheses presented is startling the demonstration that they can be derived from a framework, the pieces of which are already in place,is significant. What original contributions are made--the notion of the befriended variant, the attention to specialization and generalization in friendship, the stress on the significance of the set of friends and the contrastive character of labeling processes--are minor compared to the work of organizing existing pieces of the theory of friendship into a coherent theoretical entity .
II
Friendship is sometimes taken as the label for a cultural form, a collection of norms identifying a status role relationship combination. At other times it refers globally to the set of actual relationships to which the label friendship is applied by one or more participants or some significant observer. On occasion,the term "friendship" is used to identify a sub unit in some collectivity. And the term is also used to identify a particular type of interpersonal connections between two or more indviduals, stressing a connection based on feelings and perception . Each of these meanings isolates some different aspect of what in general is felt to be some single entitity: but it is not clear how this unitary thing should be identified: It is not exactly clear then , what a theory of friendship is (or should be) about. In this paper we identify the term friendship with the totality of relationships labeled or identified as friendships in western societies.
Two distinct sociological approaches to the theory of friendship are open.The first depends on 1) conceptualizing friend as a status with an associated role and friendship as a normatively defined social relationship with specifiable attributes and 2) assuming that actual relationships are identified as friendships because they embody,to some suitably high degree the set of attributes associated with the term friendship in the cultural model. If this approach is followed, a theory of friendship would be developed by showing how people shape their interaction so as to embody this cultural model. From this point of view friendships are actual relationships in which this shaping has been sucessful. A theory developed along these lines would constitute a specification of the conditions under which this shaping takes place and factors which facilitate or interfere with and distort this shaping. But if,as in this paper, one resists conceptualizing friendship as a well defined status-role- relationship bundle and if one is unwilling to assume that actual relationships are identified as friendships because they possess to some high degree the set of features specified in the cultural model, then another theoretical approach must be taken.
We develop a theory of friendship, disregarding for the most part the fact that friendship exists as a defined social relationship in Western societies. We proceed as if we could account for the features of friendship on the basis of needs and constraints. After developing the theory within this framework, we reintroduce the fact that friendship is one of spectrum of relationships that society makes available to its members . At this point we consider the modifications of the theory that this fact necessitates.
A Precis of the theory
At any given time people operate to satisfy some set of needs -as opposed to a single need: two kinds of needs are relevant for the understanding of the friendship relationship: a) self related needs b) needs for unsourced material The kinds of material that will satisfy these needs have certain properties that shape the relationships in which one can attain the satisfaction of these needs .Psychological and sociological constraints facilitate and set bounds on the interactions between individuals through which the needs are satisfied. Individuals attempting to meet these needs using these materials ,shape their relationships so that friendship appears the appropriate label or name.We ground the theory on 2 assumptions.
First we assume that friendship is a process or related set of processes. Second, we assume that friendship is a cut or slice of the spectrum of relationships that members of a society maintain. These assumptions identify friendship as one of a family of relationships among some set of families of relationships made available and maintained by individuals in a society. We will try to explain the character of the cut of the spectrum of relationships identified as friendships.
Needs
The theory proper begins with the identification of two classes of needs which we identify with friendship. The first of these are needs related to the self.
The second encompasses needs for materials, and services for which no regular insitutional legitimate, public, economic or market mechanisms are available. Three dimensions of each of these classes of needs must be taken into account. These are: 1. The quantity or amount of satisfaction of any given need that is provided by the behavior of some person. 2. The stability of the satisfaction,i.e., the liklihood of continued satisfaction of any particular need by any particular need satisfier. 3. The range of needs satisfied by any particular action or behavior of any particular satisfier.
Self and Self related needs
While our conception of self is quite different from his, we adopt, without modification, the set of self related needs introduced by Wright(????). Wright identifies four needs associated with the self; These are the needs for affirmation, support, postive evaluation of self attributes and support for positive self growth.(alternative constructions of needs that are self related have been provided by Weiss(????).) Needs for relatedness, intimacy and closeness with others are derived from this set of self related needs.
The Self
We need to outline briefly the conception of self on which this theory is based. There are two reasons for this. The first is that in a few respects it is a non standard conception of self. The second is that although we adopt Wright's conception of self related needs without modification our idea of the self differs in significant ways from his. We conceptualize the self as a set of stable related processes located both in the person and in the persons relations with others.(Goffman,????)
In all social situations attributes of a person affect how others in that situation intepret their behavior and respond to their actions.Some of these are related to the position a person occupies: others are associated more intimately with the individual and are used as a basis of predicting how the individual will select between and modify available positional and role variants. Some of these characteristics are used in many different situations by others as a basis for acting towards the person. Other attributes of a person may play a role in how other people respond to them, but infrequently and as a way of resolving conflicts between behavioral choices.
The individual comes over time to represent these socially relevant attributes internally and adopt and embrace some as his/her relevant characteristics. The internally available representation of these relevant attributes we identify as the self. The core of the self consists of recognized and claimed attributes,generated and maintained by representational processes. Two other facts need to be noted. (1) these attributes are "bordered" by patterns that are internally represented less clearly and available reflexively less readily. The individual manifests and intenally represents patterns for which no simple ,readily available label exists. (2)The self exists largely as interaction within the individual(involving representational processes) and between individuals. It is constitutionally social. If this is so then there will be parts of the self which are difficult to represent reflexively because they are manifest only in interaction between individuals and the reflexive representational processes-- because they involve entirely internal interactions-- are not adequate to alow them to be identified.
As characteristics are internalized --identified, attributed,located and embraced-- during socializations and are transformed into self, they are made unique. Variations in the order in which individuals pass through the social situations in which the characteriistics of self assume relevance, the continuity of the individual over different social situations, the career the individual anticipates through social situations and social institutions and the context of previously adopted characteristics will affect the product of internalization. The individual also does his/her own evaluation of their actual- as opposed to apparent - possession of attributes others ascribe to him or her . All of these factors establish the uniqueness of the individuals representations of his/her self. Social structures,however, are central in setting up the framework of self that individuals use in negotiating their way through every day orders. The attributes of the self that are available to be embraced are social constructions and constructed in and on the basis of interaction. Society as a whole, as well as particular groups and organizations, determine which characteristics of the person are to be seen as critical or central . The framework within which the individual chooses aspects of the self or particular values for central core characteristics is socially provided and suffused with social evaluations.The self is critically related to the social structures in which people function. It is essentially and thoroughly social.
Four 'quandrants' of the self are relevant to friendship. There are central aspects of the self which are of general relevance i.e., which are likely to be relevant in a number of different social situations.There are central aspects of the self which are primarily situationally rooted that is central aspects of the self which are relevant in action in relatively well defined but limited social sitations, i.e., work related identities. There are peripheral aspects of the self which are of general relevance. There are peipheral aspects of the self which are relevant only in limited situations.
Needs for unsourced material:
Friendship as a social relationship is related to another set of needs which we label unsourced needs . The following kinds of needs fall into this category
a)Material and service needs for which the society or social organization only weakly designates legitimate,publicly available channels or markets through which one is directed to seek satisfaction, e.g., information about the distribution of power in an organization, allies in political struggles in an organization ,etc. (We identify these as legitimately unsourced needs )
b) needs for materials and services for which legitimate social and economic markets exist and legitimate suppliers or satisfiers are identified but which are also available from a large number of others at minimal cost as part of informal exchanges arrangments. These needs may be unsourced because individuals do not have the resources to meet them through established channels, e.g., a lift to the airport, emergency services like babysitting, help with a job one has to do. (These we call practically or diffusely unsourced needs)
c)Needs for coparticipants or partners for activities . In order to engage in some activities one needs partners or coparticpants. These activities are likely to benefit both participants equally regardless of who initiates the activity. There are occasionally a few ,esoteric and often stigmatized public suppliers of these services, i.e.,escort services,dating bureaus .(We call this subset naturally unsourced needs.
We will identify these needs collectively as needs for unsourced materials or elliptically, unsourced needs.The nature of the materials available to satisfy needs.
The self as we have conceptualized it exists as a set of processes. It is socially structured and it is layered in the sense that some aspects of the self not well represented reflexively by the person whose self it is. The "material" for satisfaction of self related needs is of a particular kind.The material of satisfaction of these needs is material producable only as and in interaction. Everyone is a both a potential consumer and a potential supplier of the material satisfying these needs .Although some people are perceived as more able to satisfy others self related needs, everyone has the basic capacities to satisfy these needs. The material satisfying these needs is customized, non standardized, material. It is useful only to the person for whom it is produced and it is produced for immediate consumption. It can not be stored well and only as memory.
Both the producer and the consumer of such material are in monopoly situations viz a viz the other ;no one else can provide exactly the same material nor consume that which is produced for another. The material satisfying self related needs is easy to identify but hard to validate as real and genuine. Such validation (of the material as appropriate for satisfying the need) depends entirely on subjective decisions, The material is constituted by the responses of the other to the self. If the others response to the material is not genuinely based on their "real" or actual response to the self but shaped by ulterior purposes and intentions, then their speech and behaviors are not what they appear to be, not the material which satisfies self related needs.
In order for another to provide responses to the self, they must be provided with the information necessary to produce that response, i.e., they must be provided with that information indirectly through communication or be allowed to see those parts of the self in action directly. Continued affirmation of and support for the self requires much sifting sorting and organization of routine unexceptional surface material in order to derive an adequate picture of the self. The self is a changing set of processes so that satisfaction of self related needs requires access to the continuously changing states of the self. It also requires sensitivity to the manner in which the other communicates, a critical (empathetic) grasp of the way in which the other processes information,works feelings and contexts into decisions etc.
What has been said of the material which is useful for satisfying self related needs is true of the material which can satisfy unsourced needs. The material necessary for the satisfaction of many of these needs is pgyrm available from a number of people in ones environment. People who are similar to one another are likely to have similar needs for unsourced material.They are also likely to have similar resources avaialbe to satisfy these needs and at similar costs. Both the needs and the material neessary to satisfy them arise out of the realities of everyday life.
Unsourced needs are frequently immediate; But much of the material for the satisfaction of these needs (time and energy) is also likely to be immediately available.Both the needs for unsourced materials and the material satisfying these needs is often shared by the participants in social relationships so that it is material which is likely to be mutually available, if differentially needed at any given time. The gains from satisfaction of unsourced needs are likely to be marginal not central. Satisfaction of such needs enhance well being . Every organization and institutional situation is likely to allow marginal additions to satisfaction from preferential treatment. (Litwack????)
Constraints
The features of friendship emerge and are kept stable by the constraints which operate when people try to secure satisfaction of the needs we have cited using the material we have identified under constraints. We recognize two sorts of constraints
a) constraints whose source is the psychological character of the participants and b) constraints whose source is the sociological field, the spectrum of relationships a society makes available and the set of actual relationships an individual is emeshed in.
We identify four specific constraints; (1)There are constraints to communicate and expose the self. (2) There are constraints to maintain the perception of the other as free which entails to some degree maintaining the others actual freedom. (3) There are constraints that flow from the need to do accounting in the relationship. (4) There are constraints that come from the need to manage a set of actual relationships in the context of a spectrum of relationships, constraints identified with the needs to keep relationship types distinct and to integrate the actual set of relationships that every individual is involved in.
We use these constraints to derive the features of friendship . We do this by showing that, as individuals attempt to acquire the material necessary to satisfy self related and unsourced needs, these constraints limit and shape their interaction so that stable relationships which develop for which freindship appears the appropriate label.
The constraint of communication and self exposure:
If we demand of another that they respond to our self, we must be prepared to communicate about that self, to provide the other with the information neceesary to identify and respond to the self. If we demand of another that they provide us with responses to our self we are constrained to permit them to access our self even when we are not prepared for its public presentation . If we require of a person that they respond to ourselves we must permit them some degree of determination of when and how they choose to access the self. We must be willing to let them position themselves so that they feel they will be able to see, grasp and contact our selves. Finally, we must reduce the uusual defenses we adopt which protect what we feel are vunerable aspects of the self.
The satisfaction of needs for self affirmation and self support require communication of self through interaction. Because the self is complex and parts are not visible to the person himself/herself a desire to satisfy relevant needs requires exposing (not only commmunicating about) the self to the other. This requires interaction under conditions and in settings where important aspects of the self are exposed.
The constraint of freedom
We are constrained to maintain a perception of the other as free which requires some degree of maintainence of actual freedom of the other.@2
If a behavior or statement of another is to be intepreted as providing ego suport or self affirmation the it must be identified by the recipient as genuine. Everyday logics are used to determine whether it is genuine.
For anothers productions to be perceived as genuine, everyday logic demands that a) it must be perceived as not ulteriorly motivated and b) the other person must be seen as not having been compelled to produce it.
If another is perceived as having an ulterior motive for providing one with self affirmatory or supportive behavior that behavior is identified as not genuine. Similarly, statements which are produced under compulsions of force are not likely to be perceived as genuine. We tend to rule out as potential friends those who have a well defined rational calculated interest in gratifications we may provide as well as those over whom we have some power.
The other must be free or perceived as free to end the relationships when it is not longer satisfying their psychological needs. This perception of the others freedom is a condition for seeing their productions as flowing from affectively based,but disinterested, perceptions. They must
sustain the appearance that their responses and behavior to our selves are merely an acknowledgement of a reality that they are in a privledged position to see and as coming from or given on the basis of positive regard for us and motivaed by the attraction of our postive features.
The constraint of accounting
In any interactional system where individuals are attempting to meet self related and unsourced needs by exchanging the kinds of material we have identified, accounting must be done. There are a number of reasons for this.
1)Accounting must be done because (we assume) people believe such relationships work best when they are balanced, hence individual must account to see if such a state of balance exists and if not to bring the system into a state of balance.
2) Accounting must be done in the relationship in order to be able to judge whether our behavior is suffiently rewarding to the other to motivate them to remain the the relationships.
3)Since we are emeshed in a set of relationships we must do accounting to see how we should distribute effort over the set of relationships we are engaged in and to estimate if such a shift would disrupt the relationships at issue. We must review our satisfactions in light of the others behaviors to see whether our own rewards outweigh whatever costs the relationshps entails in order to determine whether we should stay in the relationship.
4)We must account in order to maintain or alter our picture of the other as not rationally motivated. Continuous imbalance is prima facia evidence for such a rational interest in gain.
Accounting must be done in relationships in which self related needs are being met. But a number of factors make accounting in such systems difficult.The first is the difficulty of accounting where the material received and given is oriented to satisfying self related needs and unsourced needs. There is no market for the material individuals supply each other in friendship and each participant has a natural monopoly over what they supply. There are no prices for such self related material (although we have a basis in our experience directly and vicariously for what others have given and gotten in friendships) The stuff of friendship is immediate in a double sense: it is produced in interaction and it consummed immediately . This material is difficult to account for other reasons also. Our evaluation of how valuable what a person gives us depends to some degree on some general (socially conditioned) evaluation or sense of their worth. But this overall evaluation depends (in a circular way) in part on the particulars how they respond to us.
What has been said of the difficulty of doing accounting on material relevant to satisfying self related needs applies also to the material necessary to satisfy unsourced needs. There is a dual market for this kind of material. Often the material is not readily available in a legitmate, public market. But where it is available,it is likely to carry a price that is far out of line from what it would cost another to supply the material as a gift or in exchange for some similarlly unsourced need related material. Accounting is made difficult also by the fact that benifits often flow equally to both parties when one participants needs are satisfied.
Accounting in mixed exchange systems where both self related values and unsourced needs are being exchanged , is more difficult that in pure systems, ie. where only or primarily self related or only or primarily unsourced needs are being satisfied. In mixed systems one has to compare goods of different kinds whose value , if estimable at all requires different kinds of comparisons.
A further difficulty in doing accounting arises from the fact that doing such accounting is likely to be taken by the other ( and ourselves) as evidence for our pursuing our interests in a rational,calculating manner . Rational calculation is proof that the relationships is not a friendship (that we are in fact outside of the kind of relationship in which self related needs are likely to be appropriately met.
This difficulty generates the paradox of friendship; We must do accounting if we are going to sustain a friendship
but the very fact of calculation means that the relationship
we are evaluating is not a friendship.
Constraints of managing a set of relationships in a
social context
The final set of constraints with which we want to deal flow from the facts that
a) relationships that satisfy self relevant needs are only one family in a spectrum of relationships available in a society and
b) at any given time the individual is emeshed in an ongoing set of relationships through which needs--not only self related needs--are met. Conflicting tendencies push and pull individuals as they attempt to manage the set of relationships they maintain in the context of the spectrum of relationships their culture ( or subculture) makes available to them. On the one hand, individuals must maintain distinctions and boundaries between relationships: On the other hand there is a tendency to blur and confound distinctions between relationships
The tendency to maintain distinctions between relationships
The individual must manage a set of ongoing relationships ( and develop new ones) in the context of a spectrum of relationships available to them in the culture.. We call attention now to the obvious point --which we will take as an assumption-- that the individual operates in a social environment in which relationships are already differentiated in some manner. Distinctions between relationships are provided and they have been learned through socialization. And he/she operates under the constraint that others have expectations about what types of relationships are possible,what belongs where and to whom; in short what is
appropriate, normal and customary. In any actual society, individuals are constrained by the fact that others behavior is guided by preexisting definitions of relationships,roles statuses,etc. Whatever distinctions exists betwen relationship types in a society must,in general, be maintained.Some of these may be clear, other indistinct: some of them are behavioral other are metanorms or rules of calculation. (We do not argue that all roles are normatively well formed only that some distinctions exist).
There are other tendencies operating to the same end. The set of relationships a particular individual maintains as a basis of his need satisfaction must be managed to guarantee their satisfaction of the totality of his needs. Specifically,we depend on particular individuals to be stable satisfiers of given and particular needs at given costs. We do not want another to be able to substitute unpredictably one satisfaction for another. Moreover, we want the conditions of exchange to remain stable. We do not want another to be able unilaterally to decide when and under what circumstances they will carry out their part of some customary exchange. Changes in a given relationship are likely to alter the set of relationships through which we satisfy our needs: it will force us to shift the way we distribute our time and energy over the set of individuals with whom we have existing relationships. Since it is that set that is responsible for the totality of our satisfaction,any shift in one component of our time and energy budget is likely to alter the income in other satisfactions we get from others. There is a need then, to keep the set of relationships we maintain distinct and stable.
Another pressure to keep relationships distinct stems from the difficulties the create for the system of accounting. Mixing types of exchanges makes accounting more difficult. It is more difficult in mixed systems to be certain that the others self related productions are genuine.
The tendency to blur relationships
But the tendency to blur and confound relationship boundaries also exists. It is composed of two pressures. The first is to more fully utilize people who are already satisfying some need,who are already in ones circle so to speak. It is exemplified by the tendency to get people who are already satisfying one need to satisfy additional needs.The source of this tendency is clear: they are already in ones circle: Getting more from someone already in ones circles is less diruptive than bringing a new person into that circle. There is a tendency to take people who are satisfying peripheral self related needs and try to get them to satisfy non situationally related self needs as well as central needs. Such a maneuver reduces the overhead associated with any relationship.
The second pressure composing this tendency is to change the mix of rewards that one provides someone who satisfies needs. This pressure consists of the tendency to introduce psychological self related rewards into any system of exchange that one particpates in;There is a tendency to try to repay individuals who are providing one with unsourced needs with psychological satisfactions or use psychological rewards to alter the conditions of exchange.These rewards are always available to individuals to give. Moreover since the consist of his or her attention and responses, they are among the least costly resources that individuals possess.
What we have established here is that the individual must maintain the distinctions that exist between relationship types but that there are conflicting pressures to mix types and blend relationships.
III
As a basis for analyzing friendship:
(1) We conceptualized both the self and friendship as process.
(2) We asserted the self is not only socially structured but that significant aspects of the self were generated and maintained by organizational and institutional participation
(3)We distinguished (a) bettween central and peripheral aspects of the self and (b) between self elements that were active over a wide range of situations and aspects of the self that were primarily organizationally or institutionally located.
(4)We argued that in every person a set of needs will be active at any given time and that people will act not only so as to assure current satisfaction of these needs as a set but will act so as to assure the likelihood that they will be satisfied in the future.
(5) We asserted that two sub sets of needs were essential to understand friendship. People have self related needs: they need self affirmation, ego support, support for positive growth and positive evaluations of valued self attributes (Wright????) People also have needs for stuff--others behaviors, coparticipation, information,help-- for which
public,culturally legitimate, established, institutionalized, satisfiers are weakly identified.
(6) We asserted that the "material" which people could use to satisfy these needs had to possess certain characteristics: that only certain kinds of interpersonal material could be used to satisfy these needs.
(7) We argued that each individual maintains an active set of relationships with a number of different others through which needs-- not only friendship needs-- were met.
(8) We asserted that every society was characterized by a specturm of relationships and that friendship, however it was finally identified, represented a cut or slice of that spectrum. We suggested that friendship should be thought of as a family of relationships not as a single homogeneous relationship.
(9) We identified four sets of constraints on behavior relevant to friendship. These constraints were associated with (a) communication and exposure of self. (b) perception and actuality of freedom of participation. (c)accounting processes. (d) management of a set of relationships in the context of a spectrum of relationships
In drawing out the consequences of these constructions we make two assumptions about the actual content of the cultures we have limited our attention to. We assume that in Western societies 'friendship' names the relationship in which the participants are most fully and completely obligated to attend to the self of the other in the relationship.We also assume that the model of friendship in Western cultures constitutes an idealized, postively evaluated version of whatever actual relationships are labeled friendships in the real world.
What consequences can we derive from the material we have introduced and discussed. Although we do not attempt to make formal deductions we will present out conclusions as hypotheses that follow directly from the assumptions and generalizations we have introduced.
Friendship as a family of relationships.
Hypothesis 1: We hypothesize that the class of
relationships identified as friendship will be heterogeneous:
there will be a family of stable relationships in which a
varying mixture of self related and/or unsourced needs are
met.
Friendship will exist as a variety of stable intermediate forms for a variety of reasons. First there are conflicting tendencies to preserve and blur distinctions between relationships. Second different mixes of unsourced and self related needs will develop. Resolutions of these conflicting tendencies will result in a variety of mixed forms. Third,friendship is a dynamic relationship in which the pattern of the relationship is fluid: it will be paced by the changes in self and the alterations in needs for unsourced material . The unit of satisfaction is the set of relationships an individual maintains, not any single one. Individual relationships may develop which work well in the context of the set of relationships an individual maintains and which maximize the satisfactions derived from the whole set, even though the relationship itself may be partial and incomplete.
Relationships will be labeled friendships where they are voluntarily maintained and meet self related or unsourced needs. In whatever setting they develop they will contrast with the prevailing or dominant relationships in that setting which lack the component. The label friendship is used to distinguish them because the contrastive and salient identifiable motivation in such relationships will be that component associated with self related and unsourced needs.
Friendship will consist of a set of mixed types of relationships also because of varied organizational and institutional participation . Relationships will develop which meet self related and unsourced needs specific to particular organizational participation. Again friendship will be the label associated with these relationships (1) because they meet self related and unsourced needs and (2) to set them off from the most common organizational relationships .
Every organization manufactures or constructs selves for its particpants and manufactures self relevant attributes for its participants. The needs for affirmation , ego support, etc will have organizationally relevant dimensions. Similarly every individual's need for unsourced material will depend somewhat on the organizations they particpate in. Every organization an individual particpates in will present him/her with needs for unsourced materials particular to that social organization and his/her postion in it. Every organization by the selves that it recognizes and gives reality to has the effect of excluding aspects of the self that are relevant to the individual outside of the organization. These organiztionally excluded selves still will require affirmation wtihin the organizational context because the individual will only incompletely be able to conform to the organizational requirement that they be excluded. Finally, every organization by manufacturing self relevant attributes or establishing standards for organizational performances and identities makes competence in these roles relevant for the self as a whole.
Organizations and institutional settings establish the needs for which 'friendship'relationships are the natural solution. The participants in these settings have the resources nessesary to satisfy these needs. Given the needs and the possession of resources necessary to satisfy these needs, we expect that relationships will develop to satisfy them. Variability in those relationships will be due to
a) the mix of unsourced and self related needs in relationship and
b) the degree to which the relationship is carried on entirely within the organization.
These relationships will be labeled 'friendships' because a) We have assumed that friendship is the label used to identify the idealized relationship in which self related needs are satisfied ,and b) within organizations, the friendship label will distinguish these relationships from other relationships in which no element of such need satisfaction is present.
Hypothesis 1a:We hypothesize that within organizational
and institutional settings there will exist a set of mixed
types of relationships to which the label of friendship will
be attached. These will consitute a 'befriended variant' of
standard organizational relationships.
Every formal organizational relationship carries with it the possibility of a friendship type we can identify as a befriended variant of the formal relationship. We expect that within the organization these relationships will be identified simply as friendships but that outside of that context they will be distinguished by some organizationally specific label modifying the 'friend' designation.
Variations in friendship by subculture and time
We have limited ourselves to Western societies so we consider here only variations in friendship by subcultures. Hypothesis 2: variations in friendships as a family of
relationships will be due largely to
a)the spectrum of relations which is its context and
b)cultural variations in the structure of the self.
The self is a social construction, its central attributes are produced by socialization and the self is interactional in character. Over time in a society , the nature of central identities will change. The strongest of these changes are associated with developments in the system of production. Changes in other central institutions--in family, community
organization and more general changes in gender identities etc.--will follow.
The changes in the central aspects of self and critical unsourced needs, and the weighting and organization of these attributes will alter the nature and distribution of resources--knowledge, understanding, capacity to attend-- required to affirm and support anothers self. The costs that are entailed by this support will alter also : all of these factors will change the roles and relationships through which self affirmation and support can be gotten.The availability of self support and self affirmation through other roles than friendships, must affect friendship itself. Increasingly in Western societies ,competence in work and organizational roles has become more and more central to defining the core of the self. As career and work related competence become of primary importance, the affirmation of central qualities of the self can--must, in fact-- be provided within work settings by supervisors, by professional recognition, by colleagues.
Dyadic unit formation and closed communication.
Friendship allows the indivdual to tailor a mini interpersonal economy precisely to his/her needs and resources and to then look for individuals who have precisely matching economies,i.e., who need exactly what her/she has to give at the price he/she wants for it. There is no " market " for the resources necessary to satisfy self related and unsourced needs. However everyone has experience gettting and giving such material. But comparing experiences with others and acquiring information about their costs and and gains would provide a basis for doing rational accounting. But while we must account, rational accounting is forbidden. There is then a tendency to close off comparisons to keep the particular arrangements in any friendship socially invisible. It follows from the constraints of management of a set of relationships that friendships should be primarily dyadic since dyadic relationships should be the easiest to shield from comparisons. Hypothesis 3: We hypothesize then that
friendships shall be primarily dyadic relationships which are
communicationally closed, (Paine)
Uniqueness and trust
Hypothesis 4a:There will be a tendency in a friendship
to perceive the other as unique and
Hypothesis 4b : Trust will be a central feature of friendship.
We expect that individuals linked in friendship relationships will report that they perceive the other as a unique individual and that individuals related as friends will stress trust as a central element in their relationship.
The tendency to see the other as unique comes about for a number of reasons. While the perception of uniqueness is facilitated by the level of commmunication that is required for the satisfaction of self related needs, the pressure to
see the other as unique has its roots in the constraints imposed by accounting and freedom. The pressure of accounting is reduced when what one is giving the other and what one is
getting from the other is perceived as unique. Under these conditions the friendship involves the exchange of 'unpricable' commodities (because they come from a unique source). Finer discriminations of value are prohibited by the fact that the material is unique. One is able then to deny the possiblity of doing accounting -of putting a value on what the other is giving. Such a denial relieves one of the responsibility for not accounting. This doing accounting which results in an outcome which denies its effectiveness is a maneuver which avoids the paradox of friendship.(Rubin,l974)
Trust becomes central in friendship for a number of reasons. One infrequently mentioned source is the constraint to sustain the friends freedom. We must respond to demands for the preservation of that freedom. We must do so because it is a condition for our receiving the rewards we desire. Like predestination however, the condition of the others freedom is anxiety provoking. The absolute condition that the other not be compelled to stay in the relationship and the compulsion to permit them the freedom to leave it at will, induces trust because under these conditions trust is a basis of control.
In relationships of this sort, maximum control of the other requires the active production of trust of the other.This is so because the only manner in which we can control the other in a powerful way is by controlling the rewards they receive. If we trust the other to say what is on their mind, if we trust them to tell us what they are getting from what we are giving, how much psychological reward they are getting from what we are giving, how much psychological rewards they are getting from which behaviors on our part, then we are able to increase the rewardingness of the relationship to the other ,at will. If we anticipate the possibility of their leaving the relationship, we can induce them to remain by increasing the rewards we give them. Trust then gets its significance in friendship by the way in which it operates as part of the control system. We are driven or pushed to trust the other because the condition of trust of the other generates maximum control and security for us. Trust also has the effect of reducing the importance of power differentials that might occur in the relationship. If we trust the other we can tolerate discrepancies in power which might otherwise prove disturbing.
Similarity
Hypothesis 5 : People will initiate and maintain
friendship with others similar to themselves Similarity
clearly produces attraction. But attraction alone can not account for the development and maintainence of a social relationship.
Why is similarity the basis for the slection of friends. In addition to the obvious ecological consequences of similarity the following factors are relevant.
(1) Individuals who are similar are likely to have the same needs for unsourced materials: they are likely to have access at similar costs to resources capable of satisfying
these needs. This reduces the likelihood of the perception that they are rationally interested in goods and sevices the other can supply.
(2) Similar individuals are more likely to share preferences for activities which are the resources for satisfying those particular unsourced needs which have to do with coparticipation in joint mutually satisfying activities.
(3) Similarity will facilitate the perception of
similarity. (Anthony Smith l957)@3 Real similarity is one
source of, but not a prerequisite for, perceived similarity. We expect the significant aspects of similarity will be those background characteristics which permit the individual to project similarities on another, that is to distort perceptions of the other to generate perceived similarity. Actual similarity makes it easier for a person to magnify or exaggerate the similarity between them and another.
(4) Perceived similarity will facilitate absorption of the other into self.Perceived similarity facilitates the adoption of anothers values and interests as a basis of ones own decision making. It does so by reducing the difficulties that would be created by real differences between the indviudals.
Perceived similarity facilitates (1) communication ,(2) reduces errors of communciation and (3) reduces the costs of processing information about the other.
Similarity should induce its own dynamic. Perceptions of similarity generate a natural contrast class. When one perceives one is similar to some individual one simultaneously establishes a category of those who are dissimilar. But the fact of seeing a contrasting category should increase perceived simiarity among similars, setting off the dyad more. Perceived similarity is implicated in a social dynamic in which sub groupings of interlocked dyads of multilinked circles should, on the basis of modest initial perceived similarity and dissimilarity, manufacture larger differences.
Similarity of some sort will be a factor in the selection of friends and maintainence of friendships. The fact that friendship is a family of relationships make it unlikely that any single basis or dimension of similarity will characterize all friendship relationships. We do not expect that friends will more similar than non friends on personaltiy variables: particularly , with friendships based on satisfaction of unsourced needs where self related rewards are a less significant aspect of friendship or where friendship is based on organizationlly created identities and localized and bounded organizational created self components, we do not expect similarity of personality to be a strong factor in the selection of friends. At most it will be similarity relative to a limited pool of potential friends. There is no reason to suppose that this pool will provide a wide enough selection to allow significant matching of personaltiy variables.
Flexibility.
Hypothesis 6. Friendship will involve flexible
scheduling of repayments of interpersonal debts and
obligations. Particularly there will be considerable
relaxation of informal understandings about the time within
which the system of exchanges should be balanced and the
nature of equivalances..
Self related needs are not scheduled needs. One is likely to need ego support and affirmation irregularly: unsourced needs are also often unscheduled. the ability of each person to reciprocate favors done and help given is led and driven by the others needs.
There will be a flexible system of equivalances also. The usual understandings of what is considered equivalent to what is weakened although friendship can not usually dissipate them entirely. One reason for the weakening of standards of equivalence is that the definition or evaluation of a good or service depends on its context. Any exchange of goods or services in the context of friendship always carries side payments of symbolic self related value(Wright<?????): these are added by the recipient. The presence of this symbolic self oriented componenet facilitates accounting. The accounting system and the accounting processes are likely to sustain and favor the presence of a component whose value is difficult to objectively determine. The presence of a symbolic componenent permits balancing the system by altering the value of this element so as to make it as valuable as necessary to balance out whater discrepancies occur in the exchange of goods or services. Given the pressure to see the system as balanced, this can always be done by inflating the value of the symbolic component. The manipulation of the value of particular exchanges is controlled by an overall evaluation of the other. In friendship single decisive events will be emphasized when doing accounting. Such single decisive events will be useful for grounding an over all evaluation of the other. It is in terms of these that the major work in accounting shall be done. These decisive events will also trigger balancing processes activating more detailed accounting efforts.
Best friend
Hypothesis 7: There will be a tendency to develop a
distinguished or best friend. The set of friends an
individual maintains will become a category available for contrast. Best friends will then constitute a new category which helps define the boundaries of the friend category. Wide ranging organizational and institutional participation is, at times, likely to make the indiviual feel fractured ,disorganized and scattered. Having a single person to focus the self arround while limiting ,promotes a sense of the unity and wholeness. To the extent that one can shape anothers picture of ones self one has some control over the reflected picture of the self that the other provides. By distinguishing one friend and investing that friendship with major significance the individual has a manageable and efficient target for efforts to control his/her self image.
Differentiation of friendship: generalists and specialists
Hypothesis 8: We hypothesize that there will be
individual preferences for different mixes of specialists and
generalists -friends who satisfy a single need vs friends
satisfying multiple needs- in the friendship set .
We associate this preference with problems of managing a set of relationships and a set of others related through friendships. Many specialists mean that more time is spent with each. Generalists however are likely to satisfy any particular need less well. We hypothesize that the choice of a mix should depend both on the interpersonal skills of the individual and also on the disparity of organizational and instituional participation of the individuals involved.
Spontaneity and betrayal:
Demands for self relevant responses on the part of the other should make participants in friendship open to demands for access and reduce resistance to interactions where the person has not had time to prepare the self for public interaction (prepare their face). Demands for self relevant rewards from an other requires not only communication about the self but exposure of self to the other.
Hypothesis 9a: Friendship should be characterized by spontaneous interactions. The appearance of occasions for self relevant
rewards and for unsourced need satisfaction should encourage spontaneous interactions. Willingness to expose self should lead to a reduction of defensive stategies and postures. The usual defensive stance we tend to take towards other in preparation of possible assaults on self should be reduced. This reduction will appear as a tendency to disregard normal strategies for presenting an enhanced, conforming polished public self. Hypothesis 9b: Interaction between friends shall
be perceived as unusually easeful with a corresponding feeling
that friends present their real selves to each other.
Hypothesis 9c :We hypothesize that friendship should be
characterized by a heightened sensitivty to betrayal. Since
information not usually available to others will be readily available to friends any hint that such information is being used for the friends benefit in their interactions with others should be responded to with anger and hurt.
Changes in composition of the friendship set
Hypothesis 10: There should be considerable shift in the
composition of the set of friends when individuals make major
changes in organization or institutional memberships. Such
changes should reflect the unsourced need component as well as the shifts in self related needs because of new self componenets provided by organizations and institutions.
Incorporation of the other into the self.
Hypothesis 11: In friendship there is a tendency to
incoprate and internalize significant aspects of the other
into the self. We associate this tendency with constraints of
accounting procedures. The incorporation of the other into the self reduces the tensions of doing accounting in friendship. Nothing mystical is implied by the notion of incorporation of the other into the self. Absorbing the other into the self means adopting the friends perceptual and cogntive categories as ones own;more realistically it means modifying ones own categories so that they are closer to the friends. A second element is a tendecy for friends to use each others perceived interests and values as a basis of ones own decision making processes: again realistically, this involves shifting ones own interests in the direction of the others interests. The identification with the other and absorption of the other is a basis for resolving difficulties and tensions in accounting in friendship : Internalizing another or absorbing another into ones self reduces tensions associated wtih accounting practices.
As the other becomes increasingly important what they do is incrasingly rewarding. But a consequence of this is that their needs and wants are increasingly felt as more demanding of satisfaction. The development of friendship is often constrained because of the sense that increasing the strength of a friendship and hence the rewards provided by another will increase the quality of demandingness of their needs and wants. If one incorporates the others needs and desires into ones own self , then the demands of the other have the appearance of coming from the self. They no longer appear to come from the other. Absorption of the other also allows one to anticipate the needs of the other and to satisfy them before they can be articulated as demands or requests by the other. This directly reduces th costs of giving or providing rewards since in rewarding the other the self is rewarded directly also. But it also has the effect of reducing directly the others requests . This makes what the other is getting seem less than it is. Pushed to an extreme friendship would involve complete anticipation of the needs of another, or anticipation without request. Hence it would appear that the individuals are getting a great deal from the other but asking for almost nothing.
Absorbing the other into the self reduces tensions associated with accounting in other ways. The absorption of the other permits accounting to be done without recognition of its being done, without over calculation. By making it difficult to differentiate betwen ones one and the others interests absorption of the other frustrates rational calculation and insulates non conscious mechanisms from scrutiny. The same non conscious processes one uses to calculate ones own interests can be used in calculating the others interests. The paradox of accounting in friendship relationships is that on the one hand one must account and at the same time one is forbidden from accounting. One resolution of this paradox is to promote a situation where objective accounting can not be done so that as one tries --and hence meets the demand to account one is extruded or slips out of that process because one can not support the analysis necessary to accomplish the accounting: One can not make the distinctions or assignment necessary to do the accounting.
Part of the emotional basis of friendship and its affective elements has this frustration of rational processes as its source. The affective component of friendship If our picture is corect it suggests the following . In the early stages of friendship formation the affective comonent is composed more of the absence of negative inhibitory or defensive emotional responses than the presence of postive emotions and that it is this initial stage that permits the positive affects to develop. The earlier stages are active filtering stages. Later the processes that exclude or prevent or retard or inhibit rational elements from intruding are of importance. We are suggesting that internalization is more sensitive to forces preventing internalization from occuring that it is sensitive to strong postive forces. propelling internalization. We associate internalization with constraints from accounting. One way of understanding what is occuring is to ew the absorption of the other as cooptation carried to its extreme.
IV
We have disregarded the fact that friendship is an established and defined relationship in Western societies. Does taking account of this fact force a reconsideration of the theory we have developed.
If, in fact,the cultural model consists of a well formed bundle of norms associated with the friend status, then it would be thse norms or rules for behavior that would explain why the friendships we observe have the character that they do and the theory of friendship that we have developed based on needs and constraints is off the mark and superfluous. Under these conditions a correct theory would consist of explicating the conditions for conformity to the norms associated with friendship. But the cultural model of friendship is not well formed normatively. There are few norms--rules specifying what behaviors are required, optional etc.-- associated with friend as a status or friendship as a relationship. This does not mean that friendship lacks a cultural foundation. But the ideational elements relevant to friendship are not behavioral prescriptions. They do not provide a basis for generating behavior. Moreover what ideational constructions are available identify only the most idealized intense friendship. The do not deal with casual or just friends.
Wright (Wright ????) complains that people are unable to provide a clear representation of friendship . When college students are asked to identify friendship --to say what friendship is-- they are likely to provide something like the following@5 " A friend is someone you trust and want to be with." "A friend is someone you can depend on, someone who will be there through thick and thin." " Someone you hang out with and enjoy being with."
Statements like these represent a specification of the surface appearance of friendship as a relationship. The cultural model has the form of general statements of required behavior which are contentless and specifications of feelings which are specific but subjective in the extreme ,e.g,. trust, caring, liking, etc. The cultural model, the ideational elements learned through socialization associated with the label friend can not provide a basis for producing or geneating behavior. This organization must be guided by other criteria, namely behavioral determinations provided by needs, constraints and particular situational contexts . People are called on specifically to behave in ways prevalent in the immediate groups and sub cultures they belong to, in ways consistent with whatever particular social situations that they are in. The material used to make friendship are the raw materials available to people for handling affection of any sort, for keeping secrets etc.
But there is little behavioral raw material specific to friendship. The behavioral profile that constitutes friendship is constructed from the raw materials for behaving in general. The organization of the behavior into a package must be guided by other criteria than norms which constitute friend as a status. We suggest that the needs and the constraints provide such a determinative element. The ideational elements associated with friendship do provide a basis for telling whether the operations have been sucessful. They identify whether interpersonal operations have been successful whether a dependable connection of the friendship sort has been accomplished.
____________________
@1 Blau, Peter, Comments on the propexts for a Nomothetic Theory of social struture, pp 265-271 , Journal of the THeory of Social Behavior Vol 13, no 3, Oct l983
@2 Rubin,Z, "Lovers and Other Strangers: The development of intimacy in Encounters and Relationships, "American Scientist, vol 62,March/April l974 pp 182-190
@3 Anthony Smith ,"Similarity of values and its relation to acceptance and the projection of similarity," Journal of Psychology 1957, 43, 251-260.
@5 These are drawn from essays of my students: They are not offered as the products of a formal content analysis but they are representative of the responses they provide to this question.
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