Content area
Abstract
The friendship triangle is conceptually defined as the interrelationship among friendship expectations, experiences and satisfaction. Of primary importance to the research are the variables which predict satisfaction among a woman's circle of women friends. One hundred and forty heterosexual women and seventy lesbians were sampled within a midsize, midwestern city to examines these issues. A self-administered questionnaire was utilized to collect data. Various independent variables such as attitudes towards women, political identification, number of women friends and the importance level of a list of specific needs were regressed on expectations, experiences and satisfaction.
The findings indicate that, while women do differentially evaluate their satisfaction with female friends, the differences are not great. Sexual preference is a key issue within the research. The findings suggest that lesbians and heterosexual women identify different factors which predict friendship experiences but that friendship satisfaction, when controlling for these two groups, is predicted by rather similar variables. Sexual preference is not significant in the prediction of friendship satisfaction.
Dyadic status is also an important variable within the research and is not significant to the prediction of friendship satisfaction. While women with partners and those without partners identify two different variables which predict their satisfaction with female friendship, overall, these two groups are similar in what they identify as important to satisfactory friendships. An interaction between sexual preference and dyadic status was tested for but was not significant.
An intertwining relationship exists between expectations, experiences and satisfaction. The factors which predict friendship expectations and experiences are important to satisfaction as well. Indeed, the relationship among these variables suggests that they are assessed and reassessed based on one another.
