친구는많을수록좋은가?친구연결망의크기가중학생의친구관계의 질에 미치는 영향

초록

This study aimed to examine associations between friendship networks and quality of friendship (Positive relationships with friends and cooperation) for middle school students and to analyze if and how friendship networks have independent and different effects on the quality of friendship depending on its characteristics. We analyzed survey data from 2,465 students from 22 middle schools in Korea collected in 2015. Respondents reported their friends’ within their class and in their school. For each student, we measured two friendship network size variables by generating the number of friends that a respondent reported (i.e., outdegree), and the number of schoolmates who claimed him/her as a friend (i.e., indegree). The results of multiple regression analyses showed that the indegree of friendship network was significantly positively associated with both positive relationships and cooperation with friends, which means that the quality of friendship increased as the size of friendship indegree increased. In contrast, outdegree of friendship network had significant, but non-linear effects on positive relationships and cooperation with friends. The quality of friendship increased as the size of friendship outdegree increased, but excessive size of outdegree reduced the quality of friendship. This study suggests that friendship networks have differential effects depending on by whom friendship networks are reported, and the too many friends that an ego recognizes might have harmful effects on the quality of friendship.

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