A study of early differentiation of relatedness in relationship development among college students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate early differentiation of relatedness in the development of interpersonal relationships among college students. Forty-three male and fifty-one female freshmen completed questionnaires regarding their relationship with a same-sex individual with whom they had just met. They were surveyed longitudinally at weeks 1, 2, 4, and 11 of their first term at the university. Major findings were as follows: (1) Ratings of relatonship intimacy at week 2 predicted intimacy level at week 11, while ratings at week 1 did not. The results suggest early differentiation in relationship development. (2) Ratings of friendship intimacy at week 2 was correlated with dyadic behavior pattern, in which there were some interesting sex differences. With female subjects, friendship intimacy ratings were correlated with all dyadic behaviors for the past two weeks. On the contrary, with male subjects, ratings were highly correlated with companionship behavior while they were low with affection behavior for the past week.