This study focuses on the early stage of friendship development, and longitudinally examines the relationship between support reciprocity and mental health among junior high school students. The participants were 118 new students of junior high school (74 boys and 44 girls). A questionnaire package was administered at two weeks, four weeks, and three months after matriculation. At the first time of investigation, they were asked to choose a new friend they got acquainted upon matriculation, and to complete questionnaires that measured support receiving and giving in a friendship, stress responses, and relationship intimacy each time. For students whose relationship with a friend remained at a superficial level at three months after entering school, support receiving and giving in a friendship decreased over time. At either time of study, support reciprocity did not correlate significantly with stress responses, confirming the previousresearch results

Tanaka Koji

Taniguchi Hirokazu

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A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship betweenSupport Reciprocity and Mental Health (2):Focusing on the Early Stage of Friendship Developmentamong Junior High School StudentsHirokazu TANIGUCHI＊ Koji TANAKA＊＊サポートの互恵性と精神的健康に関する縦断的研究（２）―中学生の友人関係初期に着目して―谷 口 弘 一 田 中 宏 二AbstractThis study focuses on the early stage of friendship development, and longitudinallyexamines the relationship between support reciprocity and mental health among juniorhigh school students. The participants were 118 new students of junior high school (74boys and 44 girls). A questionnaire package was administered at two weeks, four weeks,and three months after matriculation. At the first time of investigation, they were askedto choose a new friend they got acquainted upon matriculation, and to completequestionnaires that measured support receiving and giving in a friendship, stressresponses, and relationship intimacy each time. For students whose relationship with afriend remained at a superficial level at three months after entering school, supportreceiving and giving in a friendship decreased over time. At either time of study, supportreciprocity did not correlate significantly with stress responses, confirming the previousresearch results.Key words: social support, support reciprocity, stress responses, junior high schoolstudents.長崎大学教育学部紀要−教育科学− 第 76 号 43 〜 49 （2012 年３月)＊Faculty of Education, Nagasaki University＊＊Okayama UniversityTaniguchi and Ura (2005) examined how the linkage between support reciprocity inrelationship with both parents and friends and mental health among children inelementary school, junior high and high school change over time. It found a significantcorrelation between support reciprocity in friendships and lower depression only amonghigh school students, which indicated that depression was the lowest when supportreceived and support given in a relationship were at the equal level. Taniguchi and Ura(2003) conducted a longitudinal investigation of the influence of support reciprocity infriendships on stress responses among elementary school and high school students. Forelementary school students, support reciprocity did not correlate significantly with stressresponses either at the beginning or the end of the school year. Among high schoolstudents, support reciprocity did correlate significantly to stress responses at the end ofthe year, but not at the beginning. These results suggest that the relations betweensupport reciprocity and mental health is influenced primarily when the level of eachindividualʼs development at the time of mutual support and second, when the friendshipitself has reached a certain level.Taniguchi and Tanaka (2007) focused on the early stage of friendship development forfurther longitudinal examination of how the growth of relationship among collegestudents influences the linkage between support reciprocity and mental health. Theyconducted longitudinal questionnaire surveys at one week, two weeks, four weeks, andthree months after entering college. It was shown that up to four weeks aftermatriculation, support reciprocity in a friendship was strongly associated with lowerstress responses. Moreover, it was found that for students whose relationship with afriend remained shallow at three months of college, support reciprocity in a friendshipcorrelated significantly with lower stress responses only at one week after matriculation.These results suggest that reciprocal relationship is emphasized at the early stage offriendship development, and that a future course of relationship (either superficially orcloser) is determined at about two weeks after making friends.This study longitudinally examined the relationship between support reciprocity andmental health at the early stage of friendship (at two weeks, four weeks and threemonths) among junior high school students.MethodParticipants and ProcedureThe participants were 118 new students of junior high school (74 boys and 44 girls). Aquestionnaire package was administered from April 25 to 28 (Time 1: at about twoweeks after matriculation), May 17-28 (Time 2: at about four weeks after matriculation),and July 7-13 (Time 3: about three months after matriculation). The questionnairepackage was distributed by homeroom teachers during a long homeroom period or afterschool. Before answering the questionnaire package, students were informed that their長崎大学教育学部紀要−教育科学− 第 76 号44responses were kept confidential and would have no influence on their school records.Students completed the measures of support receiving, support giving, stress responses,and relationship intimacy at Times 1 to 3 (three times in total).MeasuresSupport receiving in a friendship. A six-item scale was used to assess supportreceiving in a friendship. The items on this scale were adapted from the Scale ofExpectancy for Social Support for Junior High School Students (SESS; Okayasu, Shimada,& Sakano, 1993). Participants were asked to choose a new same-sex friend they had gotacquainted after entering junior high school and to rate the items on the basis of howoften their friend had given support to them in the past several months. Answers couldrange from never (1) to very often (4). Scores were summed up across items. The higherscores indicate that the individual received more support from the friend. The alphareliabilities for Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3 were .90, .92 and .94, respectively.Support giving in a friendship. We revised six items on the support receiving scale sothat each of the items could imply support given to a friend and be used to assess theactual support given to a friend. The participants were asked to choose the same friendwhom they chose for rating support receiving, and to complete the items based on howoften they were given support by them in the past several months. Answers could rangefrom never (1) to very often (4). Scores were added up across items. The higher scoresindicate that the individual gave more support to the friend. The alpha reliabilities forTime 1, Time 2, and Time 3 were .91, .92 and .94, respectively.Stress responses. The stress response scale was developed based on Miura, Fukuda,and Sakanoʼs (1995) 24-item Stress Response Scale for Junior High School Students. Fiveitems were selected from the four lower-order scales (bad mood, anger,depression/anxiety, physical response and helplessness) respectively, yielding twentyitems. Participants were asked to judge the degree to which the items fit them in theprevious week, and to assess their own feeling or physical condition for every item. Forassessment, they used a scale ranging from totally different (1) to exactly so (4). Scoreswere summed up across items. Higher scores indicated greater stress responses. Thealpha reliabilities for Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3 were .90, .93 and .93, respectively.Intimacy in a friendship. Nakamuras̓ (1990) one-item Relationship Intimacy Scale wasused to assess intimacy in a friendship, in which the participants were asked to respondto the item based on how close they were to the friend. Answers could range from anacquaintance (1) to a best friend (4).Results and DiscussionTemporal transition of measured variablesOne-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with Bonferroni post hoc comparisons were谷口・田中：A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Support Reciprocity and Mental Health (2) 45computed with the support receiving, support giving, and stress responses measures asdependent variables and time as an independent variable (Table 1). For all thedependent variables, the main effects of time were not significant. Based on the score ofRelationship Intimacy Scale at Time 3, we divided the participants into two groups:superficial relationship group (scoring 1 or 2) and close relationship one (scoring 3 or 4).For each group, one-way ANOVAs with Bonferroni post hoc comparisons werecomputed again with support receiving, support giving, and stress responses measures asdependent variables and time as an independent variable. For superficial group, the maineffects of time were significant for support receiving, F(2,84)=12.96, p<.01, and supportgiving, F (2,84) =4.62, p<.05. Bonferroni post hoc comparisons revealed that supportreceiving at Time 1 was significantly higher than at Times 2 and 3, and support giving atTime 1 was significantly higher than at Time 3. These results show that for studentswhose relationship with a friend remained on a superficial level at three months afterentering school, support receiving and giving in their friendship had decreased over time.For the close group, the main effects of time were not significant for all of the dependentvariables, as is the case with the whole samples.In contrast to these results, Taniguchi and Tanakaʼs (2007) study on college studentsfound that for the superficial group, support receiving and giving in a friendship afterthree months of college remained unchanged, while that for the close group, both supportreceiving and giving increased together with time. As children grow older, theirfriendships shift from casual relationships in a group of several members, to a moreintimate, one-to-one relationship (Kunieda & Furuhashi, 2006; Ochiai & Satoh, 1996;Sugawara, 1985). Junior high school students tend to have many friendship groups, andseem not to attach great importance to the relationship with a particular friend.Therefore, support exchange shall stay the same over time, even when the friendshipgrows closer. On the other hand, university students who tend to build a deeperrelationship with a single friend seem to enhance involvement and intimacy of thefriendship by increasing support exchange in a particular relationship.長崎大学教育学部紀要−教育科学− 第 76 号46Table 1 Means and standard deviations of measured variablesSupport Reciprocity and Stress Responses at each time of investigationIn order to examine the relationship between support reciprocity and stress responses,we first computed the support reciprocity score by subtracting the support receivingscore from the support giving score. A score close to zero represents equal amount ofreceiving and giving of support, a positive score represents more receiving than giving ofsupport, and a negative score represents more giving than receiving. Second, to test thecurvilinear relationship between support reciprocity and stress responses, we carried outa regression analysis with the squared value of support reciprocity as an independentvariable, and stress responses as a dependent variable (Table 2). At each time of study,support reciprocity did not correlate significantly with stress responses. Moreover, forboth students whose relationship with a friend remained at a superficial level, andstudents whose relationship had grown closer at three months after entering school,support reciprocity was not significantly associated with stress responses at each time ofinvestigation. These results are consistent with those of previous research works onelementary school and junior high school students (Taniguchi & Tanaka, 2005, 2008;Taniguchi & Ura, 2002, 2003, 2005) . It is possible that even at the early stage ofrelationship development to which the principle of equity or reciprocity applies moreparticularly (Rubin, 1973/1981) , junior high school students slough over reciprocity infriendships. As children grow older though, they start attaching importance to thereciprocity in friendship (Kusumi & Kano, 1986) . As a result, support reciprocity isthought to correlate significantly with mental health when children reach high school(Taniguchi & Tanaka, 2005, 2008; Taniguchi & Ura, 2002, 2003, 2005).ReferencesKusumi, S., & Kano, S. (1986). Seinenki ni okeru yujingainen hattatsu no inshibunseki tekikenkyu [Developmental change in adolescent conceptions of friendship] . ResearchBulletin of Educational Psychology, the Faculty of Education, Kyushu University, 31,97-104.Kunieda, M., & Furuhashi, K. (2006) . Jidoki ni okeru yujinkankei no hattatsu [Thedevelopment of friend-relationships in childhood]. Journal of the Faculty of IntegratedHuman Studies and Social Sciences, Fukuoka Prefectural University, 15, 105-118.谷口・田中：A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Support Reciprocity and Mental Health (2) 47Table 2 Support reciprocity and stress responsesMiura, M., Fukuda, M., & Sakano, Y. (1995). Chugakusei no gakko sutoressa tosutoresuhanno no keijitekihenka [Successive changes of school stressors and stressresponses in junior high school students] . Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting ofthe Japanese Association of Educational Psychology, 106-107.Nakamura, M. (1990). Daigakusei no yujinkankei no hattenkatei ni kansuru kenkyu:Kankeikanyosei wo yosokusuru syakaitekikoukanmoderu no hikakukentou [A study onthe developmental process of friendship in college students: A comparativeexamination of social exchange models predicting relationship commitment]. JapaneseJournal of Social Psychology, 5, 29-41.Ochiai, Y., & Satoh, Y. (1996). Seinenki ni okeru tomodachi tono tsukiaikata nohattatsuteki henka [The developmental change of friendship in adolescence]. JapaneseJournal of Educational Psychology, 44, 55-65.Okayasu, T., Shimada, H., & Sakano, Y. (1993). Chugakusei ni okeru sosharu sapoto nogakko sutoresu keigen koka [Alleviating effects of social support on school stress injunior high school students]. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 41, 302-312.Rubin, Z. (1981). Liking & loving: An invitation to social psychology (K. Ichikawa & Y.Hino, Trans.). Tokyo: Shisakusha. (Original work published in 1973)Sugawara, K. (1985). Seishonen no yujinkankei no hattatsutekihenka to kouzou[Developmental changes and structures of friendships among adolescents]. In Bureauof Citizens and Cultural Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Ed.), Anexamination of human relations among adolescents living in a large city: An analysisfrom the viewpoint of relevance to the attenuation of personal relations (pp. 115-118) .Tokyo: Bureau of Citizens and Cultural Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government.Taniguchi, H., & Tanaka, K. (2005). Does the relationship between support reciprocityand depression vary with perceived stressors? Bulletin of Faculty of EducationOkayama University, 128, 19-25.Taniguchi, H., & Tanaka, K. (2007). Sapoto no gokeisei to seishintekikenkou ni kansurujudantekikenkyu: Daigakusei no yujinkankei shoki ni chakumokushite [A longitudinalstudy of the relationship between support reciprocity and mental health: Focusing onthe early stage of friendship development among college students]. Proceedings of the71th Annual Conference of the Japanese Psychological Association, 97.Taniguchi, H., & Tanaka, K. (2008). Jidoseito no sapoto no gokeisei to seishintekikenkou:Koukanshikosei no choseikoka [Relationship between support reciprocity and stressresponses among elementary, junior high, and senior high school students: Moderatingeffects of underbenefitting and overbenefitting exchange orientations]. JapaneseJournal of Psychology, 79, 53-59.Taniguchi, H., & Ura, M. (2002). Support reciprocity and depression among elementaryschool and high school students. Japanese Psychological Research, 44, 247-253.Taniguchi, H., & Ura, M. (2003). Jidoseito no sapoto no gokeisei to seishintekikenkou tonokanren ni kansuru judantekikenkyu [A longitudinal study of the relationship between長崎大学教育学部紀要−教育科学− 第 76 号48support reciprocity and mental health among elementary and high school students] .Japanese Journal of Psychology, 74, 51-56.Taniguchi, H., & Ura, M. (2005). Support reciprocity and depression among children. In S.P. Shohov (Ed.), Advances in psychology research. Vol. 33. (pp.203-217). New York:Nova Science Publishers, Inc.谷口・田中：A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Support Reciprocity and Mental Health (2) 49

サポートの互恵性と精神的健康に関する縦断的研究（２）― 中学生の友人関係初期に着目して―

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サポートの互恵性と精神的健康に関する縦断的研究（２）― 中学生の友人関係初期に着目して―

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