ABSTRACT
Knowing how children think about and describe friendship provides a basis for understanding why certain characteristics predict who became friends and who does not. This chapter surveys many of the factors known to contribute to the formation and maintenance of children’s friendships. It begins by reviewing studies that suggest physical attractiveness, race, gender, and proximity exert a great deal of influence on children’s friendship choices. The chapter briefly surveys the sociometric literature and argue for the importance of distinguishing between children’s sociometric status (i.e., their relative acceptance among a group of peers) and friendship. It presents a detailed summary of observational research on the actual communicative processes through which children do friendship. Work exploring how youngsters’ behavior with friends differs from their behavior with nonfriends is also reviewed. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of gender differences in children’s same-sex friendships.
