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ED345854 PS020547
Title: Having Friends, Making Friends, and Keeping Friends: Relationships as Educational Contexts. ERIC Digest.
Author(s): Hartup, Willard W.
Author Affiliation: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Urbana, IL.(BBB16656)
Pages: 3
Publication Date: 1992
Sponsoring Agency: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. (EDD00036)
Contract No: RI88062012
Report No: EDO-PS-92-4
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.
Language: English
Document Type: ERIC product (071); ERIC digests in full text (073); Opinion papers (120)
Geographic Source: U.S.; Illinois
Journal Announcement: RIEOCT1992
Peer relations contribute substantially to both social and cognitive
development. The essentials of friendship are reciprocity and commitment
between individuals who see themselves more or less as equals. Affiliation
and common interests, the main themes in friendship relations, are
first understood in early childhood. Friends serve as emotional
resources, affording children the security to strike out into new
territory and acting as buffers from negative events. Friends also
act as cognitive resources, for they teach each other through peer
tutoring, cooperative learning, peer collaboration, and peer modeling.
Because cooperation and conflict occur more readily in friendships
than in other social contexts, friendships are also important to
the development of social skills, and children's friendships are
thought to be templates for subsequent relationships. Although relatively
few investigators have sought to verify the developmental significance
of friendship, emerging evidence suggests that having friends, making
friends, and keeping friends forecast good developmental outcomes.
These outcomes may appear in the areas of positive self-attitudes
and the functioning of future relationships. Children with friends
are better off than children without friends, though if necessary,
other relationships can be substituted for friendships. Consequently,
friendships should be viewed as developmental advantages, rather
than developmental necessities, and evidence concerning friendships
as educational contexts should be read in this light. (AC)
Descriptors: Child Psychology; *Children; *Cognitive Development;
Developmental Psychology; Elementary Secondary Education; *Friendship;
*Peer Relationship; Personality Development; Preschool Education;
*Psychological Patterns; *Social Development
Identifiers: ERIC Digest
