A Study On The Relationship Between College Students' Friendship Quality And Their Loneliness

Friendship is an important dimension of peer relations that makes substantial and unique contributions to individual’s development. Friendship quality reflects the fundamental characteristics of friendship which is a main content of studies on friendship. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the relevant theoretical and empirical research of friendship quality, this study, with its aim at solving the flaws in this regard, in a sample of Chinese college students, constructed and analyzed the structure of college students’ friendship quality through questionnaire method and interviews with some students; and the measuring instrument of college students’ friendship quality was formed based on this structure. The newly formed measuring instrument is of fine reliability and validity; it meets the demand of psychometrics and is applicable to the measurement friendship quality of college students.With the "Friendship Quality Questionnaire for College Students" formulated in this study, the structure of college students’friendship quality was examined and amended, and the characteristics of college students’ friendship quality and its relationship with loneliness were investigated further. Through this study, the following conclusions can be drawn:1. Friendship quality is a one-dimensional structure, composed of six factors. The six factors are:intimacy, help and support, the relationship maintain, appreciating and trust, the toughness of the relationship and common interests.2. College students as a whole are of high friendship quality, and there is a balanced reflection of the six factors of college students’ friendship quality. Students get a higher level in appreciating and trust their friends, and get a low level in common interests with friends; and there is significant difference in college students’ friendship quality on some background variables such as origin of the student, whether the one-child, and gender.3. Significant positive correlation exists between college students’friendship quality and loneliness; college students’friendship quality can predict the level of individual’s loneliness, and in the six factors, help and support, the toughness of the relationship, these two factors make greater contributions to the prediction of loneliness.This study made the following developments and innovations:this study constructed and examined the six-factors structure of college students’friendship quality; this study formulated a "Friendship Quality Questionnaire for College Students’ which is meeting psychological measurement standard; this study explored and analyzed the characteristics of college students’ friendship quality and its relationship with loneliness initially. In consideration of the respondents in this study come from limited areas and the sample size is also not large, it needs more study to examine and amend the conclusions in this paper further.