What We Know
Best Friends are important people in our life and they play a crucial role in our development. Friendships provide social and emotional support, a sense of belonging, and influence our beliefs. Best Friends are especially important because they give us respect, trust, intimacy, stability, joy, and self-disclosure (the sharing of personal information).
The term “Best Friends Forever” or “BFFs” implies that it is a friendship that is assumed to last a lifetime. Think about a best friend you had in highschool. Is that person still your best friend today? Do you keep in close contact with your highschool best friend(s)? Do you have any new best friends now? You are not alone if any of these pre-university friendships have changed or no longer exist.
Research has shown that 97% of first year university students find a new “closest” friend in their first semester of university, and that friendships prior to university tend to become less enjoyable and common. With that being said, teenagers who are concerned with the loss of highschool friends show greater emotional distress, less satisfaction with new university friends, loneliness, and have difficulty adjusting to university.
Even though research suggests that high school best friends may not always be forever, the importance of strong social support networks and satisfying friendships are vital to successful transitions and adjustments to university.
The Present Study
The present study investigated the changes that happen in high school best friendships during students’ first year of university. The goal of the study was to investigate the following hypotheses among first year university students:
High school best friendships become less satisfying from the fall to spring semester
Closeness & Farness should influence changes in friendship maintenance
Friends who are closer (ie. live in the same city) are more likely to remain best friends than friends who live farther away (ie. long distance friendships)
Friends who actively maintain their highschool best friendships (ie. lots of communication), are likely to remain best friends in university
People who maintain highschool best friends experience less social loneliness
Methodology
This was a longitudinal study, which means that the same participants were tested at different points in time. This study was also correlational, meaning that researchers did not interfere with the participants (ie. such as by putting them in different groups); therefore the results cannot provide clear cause-and-effect relationships. To explain cause-and-effect relationships in the context of the study, we cannot say that transitions to university cause highschool best friendships to end, or that not communicating causes best friendships to become casual. This type of study can only identify patterns and relationships between university transitions and friendships.
In this case, 137 first year students were surveyed at the beginning of their first semester (fall), and at the end of their last semester (spring).
To test for the changes in best friendships from highschool to first year university, participants were sent out a surveys that measured relationship investment, friendship maintenance, social loneliness, and demographics (ie. age, race, sex, location).
For the Fall and spring surveys, participants were asked to think of one person they thought of as a best friend in high school. The participants completed all the following surveys regarding that friendship:
The Relationship Investment Model Variables Scale: explains commitment to a relationship in terms of one’s satisfaction with, alternatives to the friendship (ie. how appealing are your other friendships), and investments (the things someone has put into maintaining a relationship/friendship) in the relationship.
The Friendship Maintenance Scale: ratings of supportiveness, positivity, self-disclosure, and interaction within the friendship.
The Social Loneliness scale: Scale used to measure participants feelings of social loneliness during their first year of university
Results
In the fall, 95.6% of participants reported having a highschool best friendship, but by the spring only 54.7% reported that they were still best friends with that person.
The results from the study demonstrated that high school best friendships decline in satisfaction and commitment from the beginning of the first semester to the end of second semester. In addition, in contrast to one of the proposed hypotheses, closeness and farness was not linked to the maintenance of highschool best friendships during the first year of university.
Most importantly, those who were considered to have “high-communication” best friendships were more likely to maintain high school best friendships in university, and those who were considered “low communication” best friendships were more likely to become casual or close friends by the end of their first year.
Limitations
Despite the findings in this study it is important to note several limitations. Firstly, because the study used self report measures (ie. surveys) the results cannot draw any cause and effect relationships. Secondly the participant population was mostly female participants and not very representative of the general university population. Another limitation was that the participants were assessed on their highschool best friendships once they were in university; this measure should have been taken when they were in highschool to avoid any influences of time spent apart after high school such as summer vacations or gap years before starting university.
On a Personal Note...
I remember starting first year university and feeling so lonely because none of my highschool best friends were in my classes and some studied out of province. With that being said, by making an effort to communicate with my highschool best friends online or in person, and setting up ‘hangouts’ when they were in town or not busy with their own school, allowed me to maintain a lot of these friendships even if the relationship itself was not the same as it was in highschool. Just remember that it is normal to experience friendship changes, and although it can take a toll on you personally, be open to forming new friendships, and put effort into staying in touch with pre-university friends that you would like to maintain.
Source
Oswald, D. L., & Clark, E. M. (2003). Best friends forever?: High school best friendships and the transition to college. Personal Relationships, 10(2), 187-196. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00045
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