Effects of Age , Sex , and Friendship Type on Child's Shared Knowledge of Friend
Young Hee Kim
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of age, sex, and friendship type on child`s shared knowledge of a friend. The following hypotheses were raised; Child`s shared knowledge of friend would increase with age, shared knowledge of girls would be higher than that of boys shared knowledge of girls would be higher than that of boys shared knowledge in a mutual Friendship would be higher than in a unilateral friendship, there would be an interaction effect between age and friendship type in child`s shared knowledge of friend. The subjects of this study consisted of 80 boys and girls, 8- and 11-year-olds. Shared knowledge of a friend was measured with a modified version of the 70 picture items developed by Ladd and Emerson (1984). The obtained data were analyzed by three-way ANOVA. Child`s shared knowledge of a friend increased with age. Girls exhibited greater ORSK (other-referenced shared knowledge) than did boys, but there was no significant difference between girls and boys in SRSK (the selfreferenced shared knowledge). Mutual friendships exhibited greater SRSK than did unilateral friendships, but there was no significant difference between mutual friendship and unilateral friendship in ORSK. There was a significant interaction effect between age and friendship type in child`s shared knowledge of friend.