Gender and age differences in adolescents' ratings of friendship quality: The importance of general aspects of friendship and specific behaviors of friends

The present study replicated and explored the factors underlying differential quality ratings of a hypothetical relationship by male and female, and older and younger teenagers. Teenage participants (115 females and 67 males; age range = 12 to 19) first read a short story in which a conflict between two friends was described. Two different endings to the short story were provided (one in which the conflict between the friends was resolved--the positive ending; and one in which the conflict was not resolved--the negative ending), and the gender of the characters in the story was manipulated to describe identical interactions between two male friends, two female friends, and one male and one female friend. Adolescents then completed a questionnaire where they rated the quality of the relationship between the characters in the story and the degree of influence general qualities of relationships and specific behaviors of the hypothetical friends had on their quality ratings.;Conflicts which were resolved positively received higher quality ratings than those resolved negatively, and older teenagers consistently gave higher quality ratings to conflicts with positive endings, but younger teens only distinguished between positive and negative resolutions when the characters in the story were two males. Female and male participants rated the quality of the hypothetical friendship similarly. No sex or age differences were found in the teenagers' ratings of the importance of the general qualities of friendship or the specific behaviors of the friends in the story.;Overall, the results show that even though female adolescents may have higher expectations for friendships, males and females appear to make similar interpretations about the importance of various factors expected to influence their ratings of friendship quality. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).