Rose, A., Smith, R., Glick, G., & Schwartz-Mette, R. (2016). Girls’ and boys’ problem talk: Implications for emotional closeness in friendships. Developmental Psychology, 52(4), 629-639. doi:10.1037/dev0000096
After a review of the literature, three types of responses are said to occur in adolescent conversations among females and males. During problem talk, positive and negative responses are said to occur commonly, yet a third option of humor arises at times depending on the gender and closeness of the social group. During the testing of the differences in gender in problem talk, the construct of closeness and intimacy had to be defined to comprehend the relationship/friendship of the participants to later associate the level of personal disclosure. The overall procedure required a completion of a questionnaire to identify the emotional closeness of the friends. Participants were given the activity of separately planning a party, then later coming together to discuss the problems that can arise at the hypothetical parties. The findings showed that when talking about their friends’ problem (friend-problem statements), closeness between the two was evident. For own-problem statements, the adolescents also showed that there was a relation to feeling close over time. This literature can be incorporated into my own research through its design of defining closeness and its method of questionnaires. The ability to sit classmates with their friends is not possible, so creating a questionnaire will allow for the research to construct a definition of intimacy for college students, since an interpretation of its meaning can vary from person to person. By providing operational definitions of closeness, the participants will answer with options they believe resonate with them the most.