CONFORMITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCE IN ADOLESCENT FRIENDSHIP

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between adolescents' views on friendship and personality characteristics. Six hundred twenty (620) randomly- sampled high-school students completed a questionnaire. Hayashi's Quantification Method of the Third Type showed two more-or-less ind ependent dimensions for the views: friends as a source of conformity and preferred psychological distance to them. The students, in accordance with the above two d imensions, were classified into four types: independent, individual, surface, and close friendship seekers. Analyses indicated that these types were related to such personality characteristics as inferiority, family-adjustment, public self-consciousness, frequen cy of problem-behavior thoughts, and purposes in life. Surface friendship, with high conformity but more psychological distance to each other, might characterize contemp orary youth relationship in Japan. The students who viewed friendship in th is way, in general, loved family more and were better socially adjusted, but the males of thi s category felt inferiority and thought about problem behaviors more frequently.