The relationship between friendship transition and conflict.

The transition from acquaintanceship to friendship was examined in this study.In particular,the study focused on the development of friendship and how situations that may invite conflict affect that process.Participants were assigned to one of three relationship conditions(exchange,pre-friendship,communal) and read about a negative(conflict) and positive(non-conflict)scenario involving the assigned relationship partner.Each participant reported how he or she would feel in the imagined situations.The results of this study showed differences between the pre-friendship conditions and exchange and communal conditions.There is a pre-friendship condition felt as comfortable with the other's behavior as friends,and attributed their negative behavior to unstable,situational conditions,as is done for friends but reported that the behavior of pre-friends was more important to their relationship.This research suggests that pre-relationship is a distinct type of relationship in which a person thinks of their partners as a friends,but do not feel like friends,and attend to interactions in order to assess the status of the relationship.These findings expand our understanding of the process of friendship formation,but raise questions about the adequacy of traditional models of social relationships.Danielle R JaroscakSheets, VirgilAnderson, VeanneMaster of ArtsDepartment of PsychologyCunningham Memorial library, Terre Haute,Indiana State UniversityILL-ETD-035MastersTitle from document title page. Document formatted into pages: contains 56 p.: ill. Includes abstract and appendix