Abstract
Thirty-six children in fourth grade were required (a) to report the secret-sharing, secret-keeping, promise-making, and promise-keeping behaviors of classroom peers; and (b) to judge those classmates on trust and friendship. Teachers provided observations of the children's friendship interaction. Same-sex patterns were found in observed friendship, friendship ratings, trust, secrets shared, proportion of secrets kept, and promises made. These were less frequent/lower for opposite-sex peers than for same-sex peers. As expected, males tended to share fewer secrets with same-sex peers than did females. The expected associations were found among proportion of secrets kept, proportion of promises kept, trust, and rated or observed friendship in females but with one exception in males. The findings supported the conclusion that same-sex friendship patterns are maintained by same-sex trust patterns through (a) infrequent secret sharing with opposite-sex peers and (b) the perception that opposite-sex peers break secrets more frequently than same-sex peers. The findings also supported the conclusion that there are some sex differences in the intimacy/trust basis of friendship.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Asher, S. R., Oden, S. L., & Gottman, J. M. Children's friendships in school settings. In L. M. Katz (Ed.), Current topics in early childhood education, Vol. 1. Northwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1977.
Berndt, T. J. Relations between social cognition, noncognition and social behavior: The case of friendship. In J. H. Flavell & L. D. Ross (Eds.), Social cognitive development: Frontiers and possible futures. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Berndt, T. J. The features and effects of friendship in early adolescence. Child Development, 1982, 53, 1447–1460.
Bigelow, B. J. Children's friendship expectations: a cognitive development study. Child Development, 1977, 48, 246–253.
Douvan, E., & Adelson, J. The adolescent experience. New York: Wiley, 1966.
Furman, W., & Bierman, K. L. Children's conceptions of friendship: A multimethod study of developmental changes. Developmental Psychology, 1984, 20, 925–931.
Jacklin, C. N., & Maccoby, E. E. Social behavior at thirty-three months in same-sex and mix-sex dyads. Child Development, 1978, 44, 196–200.
Johnston, A., DeLuca, D., Murtaugh, K., & Diener, E. Validation of a laboratory play measure of aggression. Child Development, 1977, 48, 324–327.
Maccoby, E., & Jacklin, C. The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974.
Moore, S. G., & Updegraff, R. Sociometric status of preschool children as related to age, sex, nurturance-giving and dependence. Child Development, 1964, 35, 519–524.
Rivenbark, W. H., III. Self-disclosure among adolescents. Psychological Reports, 1971, 28, 35–42.
Rotenberg, K. J. “A promise kept, a promise broken”: Developmental bases of trust. Child Development, 1980, 31, 614–617.
Rotenberg, K. J. Sex differences in children's trust in peers. Sex Roles, 1984, 11, 953–957.
Selman, R., & Selman, A. Children's ideas about friendship: a new theory. Psychology Today, October 1979, 71–80.
Serbin, L. A., Tonick, A. J., & Sternglanz, S. H. Shaping cooperative cross-sex play. Child Development, 1977, 48, 924–929.
Sharabany, R., Gershoni, R., & Hofman, J. E. Girlfriend, boyfriend: Age and sex differences in intimate friendship. Developmental Psychology, 1981, 17, 800–808.
Sullivan, H. S. The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1953.
Winder, C. L., & Wiggins, J. S. Social reputation and social behavior: A further validation of the Peer Nomination Inventory. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964, 65, 681–684.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The author would like to thank Tracy Tidwell for help in the research. Thanks are also extended to Mr. T. Singleton, the principal of the Fredricktown Public School, for his help and cooperation.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rotenberg, K.J. Same-sex patterns and sex differences in the trust-value basis of children's friendship. Sex Roles 15, 613–626 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288218
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288218