This study focused on developmental changes in friendships, and examined the relationship of support reciprocity and stress responses, taking specific account of Austin andWalster’s (1974, 1975) concepts of person-specific equity and equity with the world. The participants were 127 elementary, 216 junior high, and 262 high school students in Japan. They provided names of their three close friends and were asked about the exchange of support with each friend, in addition to responding to a stress response scale. The results indicated that the support reciprocity of the best friend and the second best friend, and the total support reciprocity of all the three close friends had a significant quadratic relationship to stress responses among the high school students

Tanaka Koji

Taniguchi Hirokazu

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Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses among Children:From the Viewpoint of Developmental Change in Friendships１）Hirokazu TANIGUCHI＊, Koji TANAKA＊＊児童・生徒のサポートの互恵性とストレス反応－友人関係の発達的変化からの検討－谷 口 弘 一 田 中 宏 二AbstractThis study focused on developmental changes in friendships, and examined the re-lationship of support reciprocity and stress responses, taking specific account of Austinand Walster’s (1974, 1975) concepts of person-specific equity and equity with the world.The participants were 127 elementary, 216 junior high, and 262 high school students inJapan. They provided names of their three close friends and were asked about the ex-change of support with each friend, in addition to responding to a stress response scale.The results indicated that the support reciprocity of the best friend and the second bestfriend, and the total support reciprocity of all the three close friends had a significantquadratic relationship to stress responses among the high school students.Taniguchi and Ura (2002) examined the relationship between support reciprocity and mentalhealth, using a sample of elementary school sixth-graders and high school tenth-graders. Their re-sults indicated a significant quadratic relationship between depression scores and reciprocity scores,derived from subtracting the amount of support given from the amount of support received, onlyamong the high school students. That is, they found that depression was the lowest in reciprocalsupport exchanges among high school friends.Such results can be understood as part of developmental changes within the concept of friend-ship, as discussed by Kusumi and Kano (1986). These authors maintain that during early adoles-cence, junior high school students develop greater awareness of the desire for support from friends.Accompanying this development, reciprocal relations among friends become more important, andthe adolescents come to see friendships as relationships in which the value of the relationship isdemonstrated by both oneself and the other. In contrast to elementary school students, high schoolstudents place importance on the reciprocity of friendships. Therefore, a significant relationship be-tween reciprocal support and mental health is likely.１）This work was supported by a Research Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for YoungScientists.＊Faculty of Education, Nagasaki University.＊＊Okayama University.長崎大学教育学部紀要－教育科学－ 第７４号 １７～２３ （２０１０年３月）Other explanations of such changes occurring with an increase in age include: changes innorms of reciprocity in friendships and a shift in friendships from those easily made in groups withseveral members, to deeper relationships with a single friend (Sugawara, 1985; Ochiai & Satoh,1996).Taniguchi and Tanaka (2005) drew attention to the importance of the exchange orientation, avariable dependent on individual differences, in order to explain developmental change in norms ofreciprocity in friendships. People with a high exchange orientation, expect an immediate, compara-ble return when they offer something beneficial to another, and feel uncomfortable when they can-not immediately reciprocate when gaining something beneficial themselves (Clark, Ouellete, Powell,& Milberg, 1987). Furthermore, researchers have found that exchange orientation includes effective-ness in regulating satisfaction or dissatisfaction with reciprocity (Buunk, Doosje, Jans, & Hopstaken,1993; Buunk & VanYperen, 1991). For example, Buunk et al. (1993) found that employees withhigh exchange orientations are more likely to feel ill at ease when unable to reciprocate in relation-ships with superiors. Exchange orientation can be subdivided into the ‘under-benefiting’ exchangeorientation and the ‘over-benefiting’ exchange orientation (Sprecher,1992). The former refers to thedegree of concern expressed when one gains less in return than what one gives to another. The latterrefers to the degree of concern expressed when one gains more in return than what one gives to an-other. Taniguchi and Tanaka (2005) examined the changes accompanying the development of under-benefiting and over-benefiting exchange orientations. Their results suggested that the under-benefiting exchange orientation could be strengthened along with development. This developmentalchange in exchange orientation can be considered as one factor in explaining the developmentalchange in the relationship between support reciprocity and mental health.The present study focused on an additional explanatory factor mentioned above, namely, thechange in friendship patterns. Sugawara (1985) examined developmental changes in friendship andanalyzed changes in how junior high school students and high school students become friends. Hisresults indicated that as the school grade level increased, frankness and not depending on others alsoincreased. However, the tendency to get along with a group of friends rather than a single friend de-creased. Furthermore, Ochiai and Satoh (1996) investigated developmental changes in the friendshippatterns of same-sex friends among junior high school and college students. They divided the man-ner of conducting friendship into four patterns along two dimensions: one dimension consisting ofthe attitude towards getting involved with others (“positive participation” and “defensive participa-tion”), and the other the extent to which one tries to involve others (“selective possibility” or “in-volving every possibility”). Thus, a four by four grid of the two dimensions is possible: shallow andwide friendships (defensive participation and involving every possibility), shallow and narrowfriendships (defensive participation and selective possibility), deep and wide friendships (positiveparticipation and involving every possibility), and deep and shallow friendships (positive participa-tion and selective possibility). The junior high school students claimed the greatest number of shal-low and wide relationships, but as age increased, the students tended to see relationships as becom-ing deeper and narrower.Austin and Walster (1974, 1975) worked on traditional equity theory premise that equity within１８ 長崎大学教育学部紀要－教育科学－ 第７４号a specific relationship was produced, and inequity experienced within the relationships did not in-fluence behavior in other relationships. They term the equity limited to a specific relationship“person-specific equity”. Furthermore, they pointed out the tendency towards maintaining equity inoverall relationships. That is, people attempt to maintain the overall equity balance in their multiplerelationships. They termed this “equity with the world”.According to Austin and Walster (1974, 1975), People who have relationships with multiplefriends are likely to take the total support reciprocity of all their other friendships into considerationas well as the support reciprocity of a specific friendship. For example, even when little gain is feltin a relationship with a close friend, an overall balance may be reached if there seem to be largebenefits from the relationships with other close friends. Accordingly, it was expected that elemen-tary and junior high school students, who have many friendship groups, would have a weak connec-tion between support reciprocity of a specific friendship and mental health. On the other hand, be-cause high school students often have a deep friendship with a single friend, a strong quadratic rela-tionship was expected between support reciprocity of a specific friendship and mental health.In this study, the exchange of support was examined in the friendships of elementary, juniorhigh, and high school students who reported having close relationships with at least three friends.The relationships of the support reciprocity of each of the three close friends and the total supportreciprocity of all the three close friends to stress responses were also examined.MethodParticipants and ProcedureThe participants in this study consisted of 127 sixth grade elementary school students (63 boysand 64 girls; M age = 11.94 years; SD = 0.28), 216 eighth grade students (104 boys and 112 girls;M age = 13.97 years; SD = 0.17), and 262 tenth grade high school students (129 boys, 132 girls,and 1 unidentified by gender; M age = 15.94 years; SD = 0.25) in Japan. The survey was adminis-tered by the students’ homeroom teachers either during the homeroom period or after school.MeasuresOn the survey face sheet, the participants were presented questions concerning individual at-tributes (age, sex). Before answering the questions, the participants were instructed to write downthe names of three close friends and to list them in order of closeness, from one to three.Support receiving . A six-item scale was used to assess support receiving in a friendship amongelementary, junior high, and high school students. The items on this scale were adapted from theScale of Expectancy for Social Support for Junior High School Students (SESS; Okayasu, Shimada,& Sakano, 1993) which includes 16 items. The participants were asked to answer each question inrelation to the degree to which they received support from each of the three close friends over thepast few months. The answers were given on a scale of not at all (1) to very often (4). For each ofthe three close friends, Scores were added up across items. The alpha reliabilities for the best, thesecond best, and the third best friends were .78, .78, and .83, respectively, for elementary school stu-dents, .90, .91, and .90 for junior high school students, and .89, .91, and .92 for high school students.Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses among Children: From the Viewpoint of Developmental Change in Friendships １９Support giving . The support giving scale was created by rewording the items from support re-ceiving to support giving. For each of the three close friends, Scores were added up across items.The alpha reliabilities for the best, the second best, and the third best friends were .78, .80, and .79,respectively, for elementary school students, .90, .89, and .89 for junior high school students, and.90, .91, and .91 for high school students.Stress responses. The stress response scale was developed based on Miura, Fukuda, andSakano’s (1995) 24-item Stress Response Scale for Junior High School students. Five items werechosen from the four lower-order scales (bad mood / angry, depression / anxiety, physical response,helplessness), yielding twenty items. The participants were asked to judge the degree to which theitems fit themselves recently, and assess their own feelings or physical condition for every item. Forassessment, they used a scale ranging from totally different (1) to just like that (4). Scores weresummed up across items. Higher scores indicated greater stress responses. The alpha reliability was.90 for elementary school students, .92 for junior high school students, and .92 for high school stu-dents.Results and DiscussionSupport Receiving and Giving Scores Based on Degree of IntimacyTable 1 displays the mean and standard deviation of the support receiving and support givingscores for each of the three close friends. The results of a two-way ANOVA on Intimacy (3) xSchool (3) indicated that the main effects for Intimacy and School were significant for support giv-ing scores, F (2, 1158) = 81.96, p < .01, and F (1, 579) = 10853.59, p < .01, respectively. Elemen-tary, junior high, and high school students all reported giving a great deal of support to their bestfriend. Furthermore, elementary school students reported giving more support to their three closefriends than did the high school students.The main effects for Intimacy and School were significant even for support receiving scores, FTable 1 Means and Standard Deviations of Support Giving and ReceivingBest friend Second best friend Third best friendM SD M SD M SDElementary school studentsSupport giving 18.53 3.54 17.53 3.71 16.81 3.63Support receiving 19.16 3.55 18.09 3.62 16.86 4.21Junior high school studentsSupport giving 17.62 4.30 16.76 4.29 15.98 4.46Support receiving 17.43 4.63 16.54 4.53 15.61 4.65High school studentsSupport giving 17.18 3.95 16.50 3.92 15.98 4.09Support receiving 17.96 4.07 16.76 4.08 16.12 4.21Note . Sample size was between 112 and 116 for elementary school students, between 203 and 209 for junior high schoolstudents, and between 254 and 257 for high school students.２０ 長崎大学教育学部紀要－教育科学－ 第７４号(2, 1132) = 113.05, p < .01, and F (1, 566) = 914.51, p < .01, respectively. Similarly, Elementary,junior high, and high school students all reported receiving the most support from their best friend.Again, elementary school students reported receiving more support from their three close friendsthan did junior high and high school students.Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses in Close Friend RelationshipsA bilineal curvilinear regression was carried out on each of the three close friends. The supportreciprocity score (the support receiving score minus the support giving score) was used as the inde-pendent variable, and the stress response score as the dependent variable. The support reciprocity ofeach of the three close friends was not significantly related to stress responses among the elementaryand junior high school students. However, among the high school students, the support reciprocityof the best friend and the second best friend were significantly associated with stress responses, F (1,250) = 4.84, p < .05, and F (1, 252) = 7.69, p < .01, respectively. The support reciprocity and stressresponses formed a U-shaped relationship (Figure 1).With increasing age, friendship patterns shift from “shallow and wide” to “deep and narrow”(Ochiai & Satoh, 1996). As high school students developed deep friendships with a single friend,the support reciprocity in that relationship was given more importance than that of other friends.Thus, the support reciprocity in a close friendship was more significant to stress responses.Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses in All FriendshipsA bilineal curvilinear regression was carried out using the total support reciprocity score,which was created by summing the reciprocity scores of each of the three close friends, as the inde-pendent variable and the stress response score as the dependent variable. The total support reciproc-ity for elementary and junior high school students did not have a significant relationship to stress re-sponses. As elementary and junior highschool students did not seem to regardsupport reciprocity as very important(Kusumi & Kano, 1986), they were alsolikely to feel little motivation for balanc-ing out the gains and losses in their friend-ships overall. Even if such a motive waspresent, it would be extremely difficult forelementary and junior high school stu-dents to judge whether their total relation-ship with all friends was reciprocal. Thetotal support reciprocity for high schoolstudents was significantly related to stressresponses, F (1, 245) = 6.73, p < .01.These results suggested that even if an im-balance is present in support exchangeFigure 1 Support reciprocity and stress responses amonghigh school students.Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses among Children: From the Viewpoint of Developmental Change in Friendships ２１with a close friend among high school students, support receiving and giving with other closefriends can compensate for this imbalance.ReferencesAustin, W., & Walster, E. (1974). Participants’ reactions to “Equity with the world.” Journal of Ex-perimental Social Psychology, 10 , 528-548.Austin, W., & Walster, E. (1975). Equity with the world: The trans-relational effects of equity andinequity. Sociometry, 38 , 474-496.Buunk, B. P., Doosje, B. J., Jans, L. G. J. M., & Hopstaken, L. E. M. (1993). Perceived reciprocity,social support, and stress at work: The role of exchange and communal orientation. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology , 65 , 801-811.Buunk, B. P. & Van Yperen, N. W. (1991). Referential comparisons, relational comparisons and ex-change orientation: Their relation to marital satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bul-letin , 17 , 710-718.Clark, M. S., Ouellette, R., Powell, M. C., & Milberg, S. (1987). Recipient’s mood, relationshiptype, and helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 53 , 94-103.Kusumi, S., & Kano, S. (1986). Seinenki ni okeru yujingainen hattatu no inshibunseki teki kenkyu[Developmental change in adolescent conceptions of friendship]. Research Bulletin of Educa-tional Psychology, the Faculty of Education, Kyushu University, 31 , 97-104.Miura, M., Fukuda, M., & Sakano, Y. (1995). Tyugakusei no gakkko sutoressa to sutoresuhanno nokeijitekihenka [Successive changes of school stressors and stress responses in junior high schoolstudents]. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association of Educational Psy-chology, 36 , 106-107.Ochiai, Y., & Satoh, Y. (1996). Seinenki ni okeru tomodati tono tukiaikata no hattatuteki henka [Thedevelopmental change of friendship in adolescence]. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychol-ogy, 44 , 55-65.Okayasu, T., Shimada, H., & Sakano, Y. (1993). Tyugakusei ni okeru sosyaru sapoto no gakkosutoresu keigen koka [Alleviation effects of social support on school stress in junior high schoolstudents]. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology , 41 , 302-312.Sprecher, S. (1992). How men and women expect to feel and behave in response to inequity in closerelationships. Social Psychology Quarterly, 55 , 57-69.Sugawara, K. (1985). Seisyonen no yujinkankei no hattatsutekihenka to kouzou [Developmentalchanges and structures of friendships among adolescents]. In Bureau of Citizens and Cultural Af-fairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Ed.), An examination of human relations among adoles-cents living in a large city: An analysis from the viewpoint of relevance to the attenuation of per-sonal relations (pp. 115-118). Tokyo: Bureau of Citizens and Cultural Affairs, Tokyo Metropoli-tan Government.Taniguchi, H., & Tanka, K. (2005). Sapoto no gokeisei to seishintekikenko tono kanren ni taisurukojinnaihattatsu no eikyo: Ritokufusokushikousei oyobi ritokukajyoushikousei no hattatsuteki-henka [The influence of intraindividual development on the relationship between support reci-２２ 長崎大学教育学部紀要－教育科学－ 第７４号procity and mental health: Developmental changes of underbenefitting and overbenefitting ex-change orientation]. Japanese Journal of Interpersonal and Social Psychology, 5 , 7-13.Taniguchi, H., & Ura, M. (2002). Support reciprocity and depression among elementary school andhigh school students. Japanese Psychological Research , 44 , 247-253.Support Reciprocity and Stress Responses among Children: From the Viewpoint of Developmental Change in Friendships ２３

児童・生徒のサポートの互恵性とストレス反応－友人関係の発達的変化からの検討－

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児童・生徒のサポートの互恵性とストレス反応－友人関係の発達的変化からの検討－

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