CHAPTER 3: FRIENDSHIP

The Friendship Bond

Mary Brown Parlee

• In The Friendship Bond, Mary talked about the research they conducted; she said over 40,000 readers express their opinions on what they looked for in close friendship. She said friendship is unlike marriage or ties that bind parents and children or something regulated by law. Mary mentioned trust and acceptance which are the most important elements in a successful friendship. She tells us that according to the psychologist, trust is very important because it allows people to be honest and to share important secret with one another. But Mary discovered that most friendship ends as a result of betrayed.

Mary Brown Parlee's The Friendship Bond, is based on a report on the Psychology Today friendship questionnaire, which was taken from a large number (40,000) of respondents. She presents the theories about friendship, that is, what social critics believe about friendship in the United States and how her own findings contradict with them in several issues regarding friendship 

The study conducted with more than 40,000 readers who were asked about what they looked for in close friendships, what they expected of friends, what they were willing to give in return, and how satisfies they were with the quality of their friendships. The social critics were not satisfied with the results of the study.

According to the study, friendship appear to be a unique form of human relationship because friendship is not defined or regulated by law. The friendship relationship is also different from other social roles that we are play like citizens, employees, members of professional societies and other organization. Friendship enhances feelings of warmth, trust, love, and affection between the people.

A study on friendship confirms that issues of trust and betrayal are most important in friendship. Besides, friendship doesn't only take place between people of similar types. It also takes place between people who differ in race, sexual preferences, religion and ethnic background.

Social critics have considered that dislocation and isolation grows out of the high mobility rate among Americans and a loss of community supports. Besides, they have also argued that life of people living in modern cities is filled with loneliness and stress. But the responses given by the people do agree with the social critics because there was no sign of dissatisfaction with the quality of people's friendship.

The study also showed that most people believe and trust their friends. They tend to turn to friends in times of emotional crisis. Besides many respondent opined that friends become more important as one gets older. It also showed that 60% people found their friendship reciprocal (common/mutual). The study concludes that friendship in America appears to be in sound health.

Regarding important qualities in a friend, they considered loyalty and the ability to keep confidences as most important. People also looked for warmth, affection, and supportiveness in their friendship while external characteristics such as age, income, and occupation, were considered least important.

The most common reasons for break-ups in friendship include feeling betrayed by friend, and discovering that a friend had very different opinion than one's. Many readers expressed that most  essential components in their friendship include trust and accepting feeling.

Activities of Friendship

When there is trust people often share their intimate (internal/Marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity) talks. Most respondents felt that helping out friend and turning to a friend for help is common in good friendship. The authors agree with the social psychologists in considering that trust encourages self-disclosure (revealing aspects of yourself that are both precious and vulnerable). If self-disclosure meets with continued acceptance (not necessarily the same as approval of the feelings or actions), liking and affection deepen (compound/Make more intense, stronger, or more marked) as well as trust.

Rules of Friendship

One rule of friendship is that friends share intimate aspects of their personal lives and feelings. The 68% respondent said they informed their friends when they had illness, 87% said they talk with friends about sexual activities.

The study also showed that rules of friendship involve the right to ask for help. Whenever they were in trouble, 15% asked help from friend before family. There are certain limits in friendship. The 77% people said they should discouraged their friends from committing suicide.

In the end, the study shows friendship is alive and well. It concludes that people's descriptions of friendship, their beliefs about them, and their ideas about the rules governing friendship are consistent (ordered/logical) with each other.

Part 4

Answer 1> The essay contains five paragraphs.

Answer 2> Individual answers will vary. Ms. Kumazawa uses the example of an exceptional friendship to move toward her thesis statement. This friendship, by not following the usual "stages" of friendship, gives the reader a perspective on what she will say about friendship. To many, this approach will seem logical. Her thesis statement: The process of making friends can be divided into three stages: new friends and acquaintances, true friends, and best friends.

Answer 3> Yes. Each body paragraph has its own main idea. The second body paragraph seems like underdeveloped. Each body paragraph concentrates on one "stage" of friendship as mentioned in the thesis statement.

Answer 4> Ms. Kumazawa doe not remind the reader of the three stages, but she does reiterate (repeat/To say, state, or perform again) that people have different kinds of friends.She lets the reader see the significance of friendship to life in general when she points out the happiness, joy and humanity it brings people.

Answer 5> Yes.

Exercise 4 Topic Sentence or Thesis Statement

Answers:

1> Essay: No single paragraph could do justice to this contrast.

2> Paragraph/Essay: Certainly, books are written on the topic of friendships between men and women., but these often include research on the the topic and/or expert opinion. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, it may explain at least one of their shared beliefs, Men and women can't be real friends. But we can argue against it at length in the form of an essay.

3> Paragraph: You can choose your friends, but your family is chosen for you. Our friends reflect who we are because in a way they are an extension of who we are or what we are like.

4> Paragraph/Essay: We can write on good qualities we expect on our friends, probably by giving an example of each quality. Also we can limit the qualities to two or three important ones that can be discussed at more length in an essay.

5> Paragraph/Essay: We can draw the information from various sources and write a good paragraph on each of the three characteristics. Drawing on our own experiences, we could expand the topic into an essay.

6> Paragraph> This topic is well suited to a narrative paragraph. It could also be expanded into an essay by us.

7> Paragraph/Essay: This could be treated succinctly (compactly With concise and precise brevity; to the point) in a paragraph. With thought and effort, it could also be expanded into an essay by many of us.

8> Paragraph/Essay: We can write a well-developed paragraph from our own experiences or by using information from the readings. An essay will require much more thinking to be more than a very long paragraph stretched out into the form of the essay.

9> Paragraph: A good paragraph could be developed  using examples or even a narrative. An attempt to expand it into essay, say, by devoting three paragraphs to three examples, could easily result in using major evidence to make a minor point.

10> Essay: To be informative and convincing, this topic would require an essay-and substantial thinking by the writer. The topic itself- different kinds of friends-is limited.