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Frian'Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.'William Shakespeare ( 1564-1616)A Midsummer Night's Dream (1, i, 234)

The last port of call in our voyage of social psychological discovery is friendship andlove. In this chapter we' ll discuss research on the thoughts, feelings and behaviours weexperience in relation to close others. We will look at what makes us become friendswith others, what makes other people want to be friends with us, how physical, physiological, and psychological characteristics interact, what makes us fall in love, and whatmakes us fall out of love. William Shakespeare appears to have got it exactly right:social psychologists have discovered that there is far more to love than meets the eye ...and what meets the eye is only a fraction of what determines whether we fall in love.

FRIENDSHIPHaving discussed in Chapter 11 the reasons why people seek affiliation, and thefactors that determine why we select particular people as those we would like to getclose to, in this chapter we look at what happens after initial attraction, when peoplemove from superficial interactions with one another to close friendships. We willfirst talk about how friendships develop and how they sometimes break down. Wewill discuss the gender differences that exist in same-sex friendships, in terms ofemotion and physical expression, and why these gender differences exist.

Social Penetration TheorySocial penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973) offers an explanation for whyand how friendships develop, focusing on the crucial role of self-disclosure, the

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imparting of personal information about oneself to another person. At the earlystages of a relationship, two people may exchange superficial information. I f theyare comfortable with this level of interaction, they may then exchange a more personal and broad range of information. Laurenceau and colleagues (1998) found thatas the level of self-disclosure increases during the early stages of friendship, so toodoes the intimacy level in the relationship. A developing friendship is guided by anorm of self-disclosure reciprocity. Individuals match one another's level of disclosure, only revealing information of greater intimacy when the other person does so.This allows a relationship to develop at a comfortable pace, avoiding rejection asa result of too small a disclosure, or personal invasion and threat as a result of toolarge or too sudden a disclosure. Once the relationship has reached a high level ofintimacy, the level of self-disclosure levels off and is replaced by an exchange ofsupport and understanding.Self-disclosure is also central to the dissolution of a relationship. When a relationship is in trouble, depenetration occurs, a reverse of the escalating self-disclosureprocess that occurs in the development of friendship. People may emotionally

DISCLOSURE TOO RAPID:RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT PROGRESSQ)..:IIll0uIll:s I0 IIE II:I II0 IE II

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354 Essential Social Psychology

withdraw from a relationship by reducing the quantity and intimacy of informationthey disclose. Alternatively, they may increase the intimacy of information disclosed,but direct negative and personally hurtful information at their former friend. In eithercase, self-disclosure can be instrumental in the destruction of a close relationship.The processes of penetration and depenetration are illustrated in Figure 12.1.

Although self-penetration theory is an adequate description of most relationships,it does not always hold true. Berg ( 1984) found that some friends or dating partners'click' straight away and immediately begin disclosing highly intimate informationto one another, without the need for a process of reciprocal escalation of self-disclosure. There are also cross-cultural differences. People from individualistic cultures(e.g. North America) disclose more about themselves in a wider variety of settingsthan people from collectivist cultures (e.g. China, Japan). This is thought to reflectdifferences in communication styles between the cultures rather than differencesin intimacy levels. While social expressiveness is a sign of social competence inWestern societies, not such great value is placed on it in Eastern societies. Instead,being socially non-expressive is interpreted as an indication of emotional strengthand trustworthiness.

Gender Differences in FriendshipsFrom the above discussion it is clear that a critical determinant of the development ofinterpersonal relationships is the speed, amount and level of self-disclosure. Belowwe discuss this aspect of relationships in more detail, specifically with respect togender differences. Although both men and women engage in close friendships,their same-sex friendships differ considerably in terms of two important features:the emotional intimacy of the relationships, and the degree of physical contact.

Women's friendships tend to be more intimate and emotionally involved than men'sfriendships. Wright (1982) argued that while men had side-by-side friendshipsinvolving shared work and leisure activities, women had face-to-face friendshipsthat largely involved sharing personal issues. Later research has argued, how-ever, that things are not quite as simple as this. Duck and Wright (1993) foundthat although women were more emotionally expressive, both men and women mettheir same-sex friends to talk to one another. Moreover, women were just as likelyas men to meet to engage in shared activities. Also looking at gender differencesin intimacy, Dindia and Allen (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of 205 studies onself-disclosure and looked at gender differences in those studies. They found thatwomen self-disclose more than men, especially in intimate relationships. Specifically, they showed that women disclose more than men to same-sex friends, butthere was no gender difference in disclosure to male friends. This may be because

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men in Western societies are restricted by cultural norms which dictate that theyshould not act in a vulnerable or dependent manner. This was clearly illustrated in astudy conducted by Derlega and Chaikin (1976). Male and female participants reada story about a man or woman who was upset while on a flight because their motherhad just suffered an emotional breakdown. Noticing this emotional state, the personin the neighbouring seat asked the person whether he or she was afraid of flying. Inone condition, the individual in the story concealed the problem, and said that theywere indeed scared of flying, while in a second condition, the individual disclosedthe problem. When asked to judge the character, men and women responded in thesame way: a male character was seen as better psychologically adjusted if they didnot disclose the problem, whereas a female character was seen as better adjusted ifthey did (see Figure 12.2). Men may therefore avoid self-disclosure to avoid negative evaluations from both men and women.Physical ContactMen engage in less physical contact with same-sex friends than do women. In NorthAmerica and the UK, heterosexual men and women view hugging and other forms

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