Naive theories of friendship : From a cross-cultural perspective

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This project was aimed at investigating naive theories of friendship among Japanese children, adolescents and young adults by comparing with those of Westerners which were suggested by previous research. In three studies, a total of nearly 300 participants-children (from second to six graders), adolescents (junior-high schoolers), and young adults (college students)-were questioned in an individual interview about issues related to friendship and their everyday interactions with friends.The results indicated that, first, there were no conceptual differences of friendship between Japanese and Western participants.That is, the Japanese participants have the same connotation of "friends" and the same structure of friends as Westerners. The Japanese have clear and similar understandings what is friendship and how a relationship with the best friend differs from that of a casual friend. Second, the Japanese children named a significantly larger number of friends than their German counterparts, and they are reluctant to exclude some of agemates and/or classmates from the category of friend. Provably because Japanese children have grown up in a culture that encourages people to be sensitive toward others and to develop harmonious relationships with others. Third, however, it is difficult to interact intensively with many friends at the same time, Japanese children differentiate the closeness of each of their friends and interact selectively with them in everyday life.