Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The Journal of Early Adolescence
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (3)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Richard, J. F.
Right arrow Articles by Schneider, B. H.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Assessing Friendship Motivation During Preadolescence and Early Adolescence

Jacques F. Richard

Université de Moncton

Barry H. Schneider

University of Ottawa

The authors describe the development and initial psychometric properties of the Friendship Motivation Scale for Children, a new scale designed to assess four dimensions of self-determination (i.e., intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation) in preadolescents and early adolescents’ desire for friendships. The results—obtained with a sample of 490 fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade boys and girls— confirmed the factor structure of the scale and revealed adequate internal consistency and test-retest stability. Indicators of construct validity included (a) correlations among the four subscales displaying a simplex pattern, and thus supporting the underlying theoretical model (i.e., self-determination continuum); (b) friends generally reporting similar levels of friendship motivation; and (c) children more self-determined in their friendship motivation reporting more prosocial and less hostile goals in friendship conflict situations and reporting fewer feelings of loneliness. Girls reported greater self-determined friendship motivation than boys, and girls with greater self-determination were preferred by their peers as play-work companions.

Key Words: friendships • peer relationships • motivation • preadolescence and early adolescence

The Journal of Early Adolescence, Vol. 25, No. 3, 367-385 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0272431605276930
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?