Gossip Is An Evolutionary Theory

Everyone has had some experience with gossip. In this lab, you will explore how well rumors (or secrets) spread when this information is passed on to other people.

Friendship is one of the most valuable components in life. Friendship has the ability to change lives in a positive way. Friendship changes people’s views on life to a more positive outlook. “True friendship is when someone knows you better than yourself and takes a position in your best interests in a crisis. Friendship goes beyond sharing time together, and it is long lasting.” (Friends.com). As we spend a lot of time with our friends, friendship opens our minds to different ways of viewing the world. Unfortunately, sometimes strong barriers may be placed by those who see two people’s friendship as a threat; since people are influenced by their friends, friendship could make people question what

Social Psychology also focuses on social behaviour, people’s thoughts, feelings friendship and how we interact with other people. A prime example of this is in a study carried out by Brian Bigelow and John La Gaipa [1975] when they carried out a study on children’s friendship. Bigelow and La Gaipa wanted to explore what understanding children had on friendship and how it changed with the children’s age group and of the same sex. Bigelow and La Gaipa began their research by asking a group of children to write an essay in regards to their best friend who had to be of the same sex the children was asked to write what their expectations were from their friend. To enable this research to be conducted Bigelow and La Gaipa completed a list of Twenty

Throughout this essay I will be evaluating the contribution of an ethnographic approach to research on friendship. I will be looking at, and including evidence to support both sides of the argument as to whether or not this research method is in fact useful when it comes to gaining knowledge about friendship. As well as evaluating this method, I will compare it against others to reflect on the strengths, weaknesses and the typical data collected. I will look at some of the questions about friendship that have been addressed, and then whether this is the best method or if there are others that could have been more suitable.

In contrast Corsaro emphasised in what friendship means in particular places at particular times and how children communicate each other in real life conditions in their natural environments. Bigelow and La Gaipa used the “content analysis” for they studies. They took a sample of 480 formal interviews from 8 schools (30 boys and 30 girls from each school, between the ages of six and fourteen) in written, text format with questions concerning the nature of the friendship between them and their best friend of the same sex, about what they felt were important on these relationships, about what they expected from them and what were the differences between their best friends and other friends and acquaintances.

Friendship has been researched with different approaches including both quantitative and qualitative types. One of these is ethnographic approach in which the researcher joins the researched group and carries out observation over certain time. This essay will evaluate its contribution to research on friendship focusing on the Corsaro’s (1985 cited in Brownlow, 2012) ethnographic study on children’s friendship. Firstly, focusing on its benefits. Secondly, moving to shortcomings. Finally, it will evaluate it in the context of social sciences’ methodology.

Hundreds of messages litter The Outsiders like broken glass. The meanings are clear; however, it takes an observing and watchful eye to detect them. One of the many repeated and explicit messages shows people how similar everybody can be. Fortunately, social standings mean nothing when it comes to finding correlations between about each other’s character.

Both studies were criticised and analysed each for their new ideas that they brought into development psychology discipline. Both studies used qualitative methods in order to compile their friendship expectation data. The key difference was that Bigelow and La Gaipa transformed their qualitative data, which was the written texts, into quantitative, which was the frequency counts . This novel method quantified written and textual data and therefore, allowed researchers to administer large and time consuming data without loosing their reliability, validity and consistency. Bigelow and La Gaipa thus, proceeded easier to generalizations in order to document their conclusions between age and gender differences and thence, to be applied to a wider population. But, even though this method had brought new light to the neglected area of friendship research, there were

Gossip itself can be detrimental to anybody and their self-esteem but when your whole seems to be the topic of discussion, than that must be extremely difficult to handle without repercussions to your

Assignment 2 – Summary of The Waltz of Sociability: Intimacy, Dislocation, and Friendship in a Quebec High School

However, it brought my attention to how frequently I gossip at both work and to my friends about those around me. Secondly, I found myself enthralled with Lily Madden’s speech due to how much I related. I noticed that I too had succumbed to peer pressure and wanting to fit in, so I wouldn’t speak up if something was bothering me. Like Lily, when she heard her classmates gossiping about her friend and refused to speak up, I would hear my friends or coworkers say something rude, but wouldn’t say anything because I wanted to avoid a confrontation and make myself seem like I fit in more (Madden). This has caused me to be shyer overall and soft spoken, which I look forward to changing because all opinions should be heard so that you can create a better system. Lastly, Ben Freeman’s speech caught my attention when he spoke of how he used to lie in order to hide his feelings. For example, Ben stated that when he was depressed about having to move to Kansas City, he refused to speak

Often times women’s studies are overshadowed by topics pertaining to other matters. Because of this, Steve Duck of University of Iowa calls women’s studies “understudied relationships”. In his book, Under-Studied Relationships: Off the Beaten Track, Steve delves into the complicated world that is friendship between women. He reveals that even the best of friendships, more often than not, will dissolve due to geographical distance, especially during the transition from high school to college. However, Duck claims that this occurrence is more detrimental to male friendships than female friendships. According to Duck, “…men’s inability to maintain distal friends may be due to a lack of awareness about and skills to utilize effective strategies that maintain a [friendship]” (184). This argument implies that men simply do not put as much emotional value into friendships as women do. While distance may seem challenging for women to overcome, they put more effort into preserving their friendship. Duck further instills this concept by explaining that “women’s same-sex friendships tend to be based more on intimate and emotional discussions than men’s…” (186). Men, Duck argues, lack the depth in their friendships that women possess and for this reason have difficulty sustaining a friendship that is met with the strain of distance.

William Damon is an educator/researcher on psychology and education. In William Damon’s work, he has proposed that children’s friendships are developed in three specific stages. In Level 1, children are about 4-7 years old. During this level children see each other as momentary playmates. During this stage children are all about having fun, with limited perspectives. Children want things their way and do not wish to hear different opinions other than their own. As the child gets older, at the age of 8-10 years old a more profound friendship is formed, this is called Level 2. During this time a child start to build trust and start to think of other rather than just themselves. Children learn the value of sharing and learn how to compromise. Lastly, Level 3 is during the approximate age of 11- 15 years old. During this time, friends are valued the most to a child. This is a more mature stage where children build trustful relationships and a high level of emotional closeness is built. Regardless of age cliques and crowds always develop among children and adults. A clique is a group of member that share common interests, often are of the same gender. The members of the group are often labeled or stereotyped. Crowds are very similar to cliques, both shape the minds of children on how they should act or how they should be. Both add pressure to adolescents under peer pressure such as drinking, smoking, skipping school, or sex in order to fit it. Cliques and crowds develop as a way

The limitations of the results were constrained by the self-reporting of the participants along with the sole use of college students as the sample population. Gender may have also influenced the study, as a participant may have known and intermingled with the gender of the person who was offered in the vignette (p.746). Furthermore, it was addressed that the possibility of more research should be done on the Social Distance Scale (SDC) to validate its use in data collection practices.

In short, friendship has no clear, formal public status in society, though in reality it may often contend with, accompany, or merge