Conflict and Friendship Relations in Middle Childhood: Behavior in a Closed-Field SituationAuthor(s): Willard W. Hartup, Doran C. French, Brett Laursen, Mary Kathleen Johnston andJohn R. OgawaSource: Child Development, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 445-454Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child DevelopmentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1131261 .

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Conflict and Friendship Relations in Middle Childhood: Behavior in a Closed-Field Situation

Willard W. Hartup University of Minnesota

Doran C. French

Lewis and Clark College

Brett Laursen

Florida Atlantic University

Mary Kathleen Johnston and John R. Ogawa

University of Minnesota

HARTUP, WILLARD W.; FRENCH, DORAN C.; LAURSEN, BRETT; JOHNSTON, MARY KATHLEEN; and OGAWA, JOHN R. Conflict and Friendship Relations in Middle Childhood: Behavior in a Closed- Field Situation. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1993, 64, 445-454. Disagreements between school-aged children were examined as a function of friendship status. 66 same-sex dyads were selected, including equal numbers of "best friends" and nonfriends, who were then observed while play- ing a board game (a closed-field situation). Conflicts occurred more frequently among friends than among nonfriends and lasted longer. Friends did not talk more during their conflicts than nonfriends, but assertions were used selectively according to friendship and sex: With friends, girls used assertions accompanied by rationales more frequently than boys whereas boys used assertions without rationales more frequently than girls. These sex differences were not evident during conflicts between nonfriends. Results are discussed in relation to the social constraints intrinsic to closed-field competitive conditions as these apply to friendship relations in middle childhood.

Children's conflicts occur mostly within close relationships, that is, between individ- uals who are socially interdependent and who interact over substantial periods of time. Relationships with parents, siblings, and friends encompass the vast majority of these conflicts, with disagreements between friends becoming increasingly salient dur- ing middle childhood. Children themselves recognize conflicts as major causes of friend- ship perturbation (Selman, 1980) although most children understand that disagree- ments and fights are inevitable concomitants of these relationships ("a friend is someone you fight with, but not forever" [Goodnow

& Burns, 1988]). Effective conflict manage- ment is necessary to both friendship forma- tion and maintenance, and disagreements are commonly seen in interaction between friends (Gottman, 1983; Katz, Kramer, & Gottman, 1992).

Conflicts between children are known to differ according to the settings in which they occur and the tasks (issues) engaging the children. When many children occupy small spaces, when resources are limited, when play equipment requires coordinated use, and when play partners cannot be changed, social conflicts are more frequent

Financial support for this project was provided by Grant No. R01 42888, National Institute of Mental Health, and a grant from the Rodney S. Wallace Endowment, University of Minnesota, to the first author, along with a grant from the Graduate School, University of Wisconsin- Madison, to the second. The authors would like to thank Marjorie Law and Susan Knopik for conducting the experiment; Jean Mirabel and Sara Neill for developing the conversation coding scheme; and Laurie Broderson, Scott Woods, Kathleen Lowry, and Julie Davis for transcription and coding. Reprint requests should be sent to Willard W. Hartup, Institute of Child Develop- ment, University of Minnesota, 51 E. River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

[Child Development, 1993, 64, 445-454. ? 1993 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/93/6402-0016$01.00]

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446 Child Development

and more intense than in other circum- stances. Thus, circumstances that heighten social interdependence between individuals are more conducive to opposition than con- ditions in which these interdependencies are minimal (Hartup & Laursen, in press). Understanding the manner in which conflict is involved in friendship relations thus re- quires understanding the conflict context: The behavioral dynamics of children's friendships will not be clear until conflict management between friends and non- friends has been studied in a wide range of social settings.

This investigation deals with the occur- rence and management of disagreements be- tween friends as compared to nonfriends in a "closed-field" situation, that is, a situation in which the children cannot choose with whom, what, and where their interaction will occur, nor how long their interaction will last. Under such conditions, children must accommodate to one another, whatever the task, since they cannot terminate their interaction. In open-field situations, on the other hand, children can choose whether or not to interact, with whom, what to do, where to do it, and how long to interact with one another. Under these conditions, chil- dren decide, first, whether to interact or not and, secondarily, what that interaction will be like. Openness and closedness actually represent a continuum that can be used in describing and classifying social settings rather than discrete social conditions. Chil- dren encounter both openness and closed- ness in numerous contexts-in school, on playgrounds, in neighborhoods, and at home.

Children's friendships involve two main objectives: spending time with one another and making common cause, that is, sharing activities and interacting equitably in the service of common goals (Hartup, 1989). Un- der open-field conditions, when many social alternatives are available, maintaining inter- action with friends (spending time together) is the child's immediate concern; common cause cannot be achieved in the absence of propinquity. Conflicts between children, however, threaten continued interaction in open settings, especially when disagree- ments are intense. For example, when two children argue heatedly about a tricycle or

a swing on the playground, either or both children can easily break off the social inter- action and seek some other toy or some other companion. Since friends are more strongly motivated to spend time with one another than nonfriends are, and since strong con- flicts are separation elicitors, it follows that friends' disagreements in the open field should be less frequent and less intense than the disagreements of nonfriends. According to this reasoning, conflict management un- der open-field conditions mainly reflects children's greater desires to maintain social interaction with their friends than with non- friends.

Observations of nursery school children (Hartup, Laursen, Stewart, & Eastenson, 1988; Vespo & Caplan, 1988) reveal that con- flict between friends are indeed less intense in open-field situations (i.e., free play) than those involving nonfriends. Resolution strat- egies also differ: Friends disengage from their disagreements more readily than non- friends and "stand firm" proportionally less often. Equal or near-equal outcomes, com- pared to winner-take-all outcomes, also oc- cur more readily. Most important, friends re- main together following their disagreements and continue to interact more frequently than nonfriends. Thus, in situations in which continued interaction is not required, chil- dren manage their conflicts in ways that min- imize risk to their interaction. Only two other studies in open-field situations bear on these issues: Green (1933) found that "quar- rels-to-playtime" ratios were four times greater among "weak" friends than among "strong" friends;' Hinde, Titmus, Easton, and Tamplin (1985) found that, the stronger the association between two children (i.e., the more time spent together in open-field play), the smaller the number of aggressive conflicts that occurred. The weight of the ev- idence, then, suggests that both the occur- rence and management of children's dis- agreements in open situations reflect conflict attenuation between friends.

One would expect different dynamics in closed-field situations-those social situa- tions in which two individuals have no choice but to interact. Under these condi- tions, disagreements carry no risk that a two- some will separate and, thus, conflict man- agement is not likely to be geared to the

1 Green's (1933) report contains a discrepancy between the data reported in the text and in a table; a decimal point seems to have been misplaced in the table. Our account is based on the text.

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Hartup et al. 447

children's desires to maintain proximity with one another. Rather, conflict behavior in closed-field situations should reflect the behavioral organization of the children's re- lationships with one another. We know that children are more mutually oriented with their friends than with nonfriends (New- comb & Brady, 1982); they are more open and honest with one another (Smollar & Youniss, 1982); they know one another bet- ter (Ladd & Emerson, 1984); and they are more affectively secure (Schwartz, 1972). Being freer and more secure with friends than with nonfriends, then, children should display both more frequent agreements and more frequent disagreements with friends in settings that require them to interact.

Empirical evidence concerning the dis- agreements of friends and nonfriends in closed-field situations is scarce and not com- pletely consistent. In one small-scale study (Gottman, 1983), preschool-aged children disagreed with their friends more frequently than with nonfriends while conversing in their friends' homes. In one other investiga- tion, however, school-aged friends and non- friends did not differ in the frequency of their disagreements during conversations about academic achievement (Berndt, Perry, & Miller, 1988). In yet another investigation, friends criticized one another more fre- quently than nonfriends and explained themselves more readily (Nelson & Aboud, 1985), suggesting that assertiveness during conflict management may vary in relation to friendship status. Otherwise, the data base dealing with conflict occurrence and friend- ship relations in closed-field situations is weak.

Believing that further examination of conflicts between friends and nonfriends in closed-field situations is needed, we devised an experimental situation in which school- aged children were brought together to play a board game with either a friend or a non- friend. Some conflicts were imposed or pre- cipitated by teaching each child separately five differing rules prior to playing the game; other, similar rules were also taught to the two children. The main purpose of the in- vestigation was to compare conflict behavior between friends and nonfriends during one- on-one interaction in a laboratory room con- trolled by an adult experimenter, that is, in a closed-field situation. According to the reasoning described earlier, we expected friends to disagree with one another more frequently than with nonfriends, their dis- agreements to be more intense, and their

conflict talk to be more assertive. Although both boys and girls were included in the ex- periment, no sex differences were predicted.

Method

Subjects One hundred and thirty-two 9- and 10-

year-olds (68 girls and 64 boys) enrolled in third- and fourth-grade classrooms partici- pated in this experiment. They attended six schools serving white middle-class popula- tions located in rural communities in the midwestern United States. The children were selected from among 1,041 children participating in a larger project to whom sociometric questionnaires were given (French, 1988, 1990) and whose parents had consented to their participation (the partici- pation rate was 77%).

Sociometric and Friendship Assessments Children in the larger project were

asked to rate the extent to which they liked to play with each same-sex classmate using a five-point scale (5 = likes most, 1 = likes least), and the mean ratings received were computed for each child. These scores were then standardized within grade and used to determine sociometric status (i.e., popular, rejected, or average). All children were also administered a positive nominations mea- sure in which they were asked to specify the three same-sex classmates who were their "best friends."

Friend and nonfriend pairs were formed for this experiment on the basis of these so- ciometric ratings and friendship nomina- tions. Children were eligible to be included in the experiment if they met two criteria: (a) average sociometric status, that is, stan- dardized sociometric scores between the twentieth and eightieth percentiles; and (b) mutual friendship status, that is, the child had at least one same-sex mutual friend. Eli- gible children were then randomly assigned to either the friend or the nonfriend condi- tion. Friends were same-sex children who had chosen each other during the friend- ship nominations; nonfriends were same-sex children who had not designated each other as friends. In order to match subjects within dyads as closely as possible, the dyads se- lected for study each included two children whose sociometric ratings were within .50 of one another. These assignment criteria mean that children from the extremes of the sociometric distribution were not included in the experiment and that, within dyads, partners were similar in sociometric status.

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448 Child Development

These procedures also ensured that the chil- dren in the friend and nonfriend dyads did not differ in propensity for establishing friendships.

Conflict Assessment Apparatus.--Children were taught two

conflicting versions of a board game. To en- sure that no child had prior experience with the game, a new one was developed called "Snake Pit," using parts of several commer- cially available games. The board contained segmented paths along which players moved their markers. Children moved their markers around the board according to num- bers appearing on a spinner. On certain des- ignated spaces, the children were required to draw cards (called Zap or Double Cross cards) on which instructions for additional movement were written; other instructions appeared on other spaces.

Conflicting rules were articulated for each of five designated circumstances that appeared every third to seventh space around the board; these rules were designed to be taught to the children separately: (a) landing on the same space; (b) losing a turn; (c) receiving a card with instructions to "Go to the Trash Can"; (d) receiving a card with instructions to "Send the other player to the Snake Pit"; and (e) getting out of the Snake Pit. One child, for example, was taught that landing on the same space as the opponent allowed the player to receive another turn, while the other child was taught that landing on the same space required the player to re- turn to the beginning. Similar rule discrep- ancies were engineered for the other four circumstances mentioned. These conflicts were chosen on the basis of pilot testing and actually occurred between 5 and 15 times when the subjects were tested, with the fre- quency of occurrence not differing signifi- cantly between the friend and nonfriend dy- ads. Also taught to the children were 15 convergent rules governing other aspects of the game.

Procedure.--Dyads were escorted to a mobile research laboratory parked on the school grounds. This facility consisted of two rooms, each provided with a table. The children were brought to these separate rooms and each introduced to a female grad- uate student who explained the rules to "Snake Pit." No mention was made of the fact that five rules were not the same as the rules being taught to the child's opponent. Subjects each played the game briefly with the experimenter to ensure that the rules had been learned.

The children were then brought to- gether in one of the experimental rooms and asked to play the game. They were told to solve any problems that arose between them and not to disturb the experimenter. The children sat facing a one-way mirror behind which a video camera recorded their activ- ity; sound was recorded via an overhead mi- crophone. After 12 min, the experimenter reentered the room and asked the chil- dren about their reactions to the game and whether they would recommend it to their friends. They were universally enthusiastic. Children were not debriefed since their en- joyment of the game was manifest. We rea- soned that, given the absence of discomfort among the children, telling them that they had been taught different rules would create more problems than it would resolve. Those children who asked whether they had been taught conflicting rules were told that, in- deed, this was the case; no one regarded this as unfair. After these conversations, subjects were asked not to discuss the experiment with their classmates and were escorted back to their classrooms.

Transcriptions.-The sound tracks from the videotapes were transcribed by three transcribers. Slightly more than one-quarter of the sessions (N = 18) were randomly se- lected, and each was transcribed indepen- dently by two different transcribers. The transcripts were compared in order to iden- tify meaningful discrepancies (i.e., missing words or phrases or other differences that affected the meaning of the transcription). Eighty percent of the children's utterances contained no discrepancies of this kind. Consensus was reached by the two tran- scribers on the discrepancies that occurred before subsequent coding was done.

Conflict measurement.-Sessions were coded using both the videotapes and the transcriptions. First, conflicts between the children, defined as events in which one child objected to the actions of the other, were identified. Because the actions insti- gating these conflicts were often innocuous or difficult to determine, the beginning of a conflict was considered to be the objection itself. One rater, who did not know the friendship status of the children, recorded when each objection began by using the video timer. Twenty sessions were also scanned by a second rater. Interrater agree- ment consisted of concurrence (within 10 sec) on the timing of these conflict begin- nings; the kappa coefficient was .81.

Using the conflicts thus identified, an-

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Hartup et al. 449

other rater (also uninformed about the children's friendship status) determined whether each conflict was provoked (i.e., precipitated by the divergent rules the chil- dren had been taught) or unprovoked (i.e., not related to the divergent rules). A kappa coefficient, based on two raters' judgments about provocation across 20 sessions, was .83. Ending times (i.e., the time that the final oppositional action occurred in each conflict episode) were also coded. Agreement within 3 sec between the two raters amounted to 90%.2 Finally, the intensity of each conflict was rated using a five-point scale based on one developed previously (Hartup et al., 1988); interrater agreement (low vs. me- dium) was 72%.

The children's talk within each conflict episode was assessed in a third coding round. Conversational turns (utterances), de- fined as continuous statements by the speaker, as given in the transcripts, were counted first. When the children talked si- multaneously, each utterance was credited to the child who made it. Each utterance was then classified according to a 28-unit coding system that focused on the social functions of the children's talk (average kappa coeffi- cient based on joint coding of 19 sessions was .81). Five scores, representing the utter- ances studied most commonly in the conflict literature (Garvey & Shantz, 1992; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986) and occurring most frequently in our protocols, were selected for analy- sis. These utterances, together with kappa coefficients indicating interrater reliability, were: assertions with rationales (.91), asser- tions without rationales (.84), acquiescence (.92), verbal and nonverbal aggression (.78), and compromise (.60). The remaining talk categories occurred too infrequently to with- stand statistical analysis.

Results Plan of Analysis

Statistical analyses were centered on three measures of conflict occurrence (con- flict frequencies, average duration, and aver- age intensity) and six measures of conflict talk (average number of utterances per con- flict, total assertions with rationales, total assertions without rationales, total acqui- escence, total aggression, and total compro- mise). Intercorrelations among these nine

measures are displayed in Table 1, revealing the following: (a) Conflict intensity was modestly correlated with both conflict fre- quency and duration, but frequency and du- ration were not related to one another. (b) The frequency and intensity measures were related to all of the talk measures except for compromise; the duration measure was only correlated with the use of assertions with ra- tionales. (c) The amount of talk occurring during conflict was modestly correlated with the duration and intensity measures as well as the two assertions measures. (d) Within the talk measures, acquiescence was mod- estly correlated with assertions (both with and without rationales) as well as aggression and compromise; assertions with and with- out rationales were also modestly correlated with each other. Otherwise, the only sig- nificant correlations among the talk mea- sures were between aggression and asser- tions-both with and without rationales.

The main statistical analyses were con- ducted using 2 x 2 analyses of variance with friendship status (friend dyads vs. nonfriend dyads) and sex as between-subjects factors. Two-tailed criteria for significance were used throughout.

Conflict Occurrence Mean scores and standard deviations for

the three conflict occurrence scores are shown in Table 2, separately by friendship status and sex. To adjust for minor differ- ences in the length of the experimental ses- sions and different amounts of social interac- tion within the sessions, the analysis of the frequency scores was conducted using con- versational turns (total utterances occurring during the session by both children in the dyad) as a covariate. The contrast for the main effect of friendship status was signifi- cant, F(1, 61) = 8.46, p < .01, indicating that friends generated more conflicts than non- friends. Contrasts for sex and the friendship status x sex interaction effect were not sig- nificant.

Friends' conflicts were also significantly longer in duration than nonfriends' conflicts, F(1, 62) = 8.69, p < .01, and tended to be more intense, F(1, 62) = 3.67, p < .10. No significant sex or interaction effects were found for either of these two variables.

2 Different criteria were used to estimate the reliability of conflict beginnings and endings because the two events required judgments about different matters: beginnings required the observers to decide both whether and when an opposition occurred whereas endings required only that the observers record when a previously identified opposition ceased.

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Hartup et al. 451

TABLE 2

MEAN SCORES AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR CONFLICTS OCCURRING IN FRIEND AND NONFRIEND DYADS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS SEPARATELY (N = 66)

Friends Nonfriends

Frequency scores: Boys .................................. ........................ 15.47 (7.21) 10.27 (4.33) Girls ........................................ 12.78 (3.73) 10.06 (4.04)

Average duration scores (seconds): Boys ...................................... ................... 10.69 (4.16) 8.46 (2.90) Girls .................................................. 13.79 (7.18) 8.86 (4.23)

Average intensity ratings: Boys ............................................ 1.59 (.38) 1.50 (.37) Girls ...................................... ................. 1.67 (.36) 1.42 (.32)

NOTE.-Standard deviations appear in parentheses.

Conflict Talk Analysis of variance revealed, first, no

significant differences in mean number of utterances per conflict between either friends and nonfriends or between boys and girls (see Table 3). Second, analyses were conducted for assertions with rationales and assertions without rationales, using the total number of utterances occurring within con- flict episodes as a covariate, thus controlling for the amount of interaction occurring dur- ing disagreements between the children. The differences between friends and non- friends were not significant in either in- stance (see Table 3). Sex differences, how-

ever, were significant with girls more frequently using assertions accompanied by rationales than boys, F(1, 61) = 13.81, p < .01, while boys evidenced more numerous assertions without rationales than girls, F(1, 61) = 13.20, p < .01. The friendship x sex interaction effect was also significant for both assertions with rationales, F(1, 61) = 4.87, p < .05, and assertions without ratio- nales, F(1, 61) = 5.94, p < .05. As can be seen in Table 3, the sex differences in these two types of assertions were more pro- nounced among friend dyads than among nonfriend dyads. That is, girls were espe- cially likely to use assertions accompanied

TABLE 3

MEAN SCORES AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR TALK OCCURRING DURING CONFLICTS IN FRIEND AND NONFRIEND DYADS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS SEPARATELY

Friends Nonfriends

Utterances per conflict: Boys ............................................. 3.95 (.94) 3.59 (1.08) Girls ..................................... 3.89 (1.30) 3.54 (.93)

Assertions with rationales (total): Boys ............................ ..... ................ 4.64 (4.09) 3.73 (3.20) G irls ................................................. ...... 8.33 (6.45) 5.12 (4.54)

Assertions without rationales (total): Boys ....................... .... . .................. 35.94 (21.31) 19.53 (9.46) Girls .................................... .................... 22.59 (8.49) 18.94 (10.22)

Acquiescence (total): Boys .............................................. 9.47 (5.77) 7.13 (3.60) Girls ....................... .................... 7.78 (3.75) 6.25 (4.20)

Aggression (total): Boys ...................... . .............. .82 (1.74) .40 (1.30) Girls ............................................ 1.06 (1.63) .62 (1.75)

Compromise (total): Boys .................................... .71 (.77) .20 (.41) Girls .................................... .78 (1.31) .44 (.73)

NoTE.-Standard deviations appear in parentheses.

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452 Child Development

by rationales with their friends while boys were most likely to use assertions unaccom- panied by rationales with their friends. Fi- nally, the analyses of variance for acquies- cence, aggression, and compromise showed no significant differences associated with friendship status or sex. The friendship x sex interaction effects were not significant, either (see Table 3).

Summary In the closed-field situation we con-

structed for this experiment, friends dis- agreed more frequently than nonfriends, and their disagreements lasted longer; the amount of talk occurring during conflict did not differ. Assertions constituted about two- thirds of the children's conflict talk and the extent to which explanations accompanied these assertions was contingent on sex: With their friends, girls were more likely than boys to use explanations whereas boys were more likely than girls to assert themselves without an accompanying rationale. These sex differences were less evident during dis- agreements between nonfriends. Finally, ac- quiescence, aggression, and compromise did not vary according to friendship status.

Discussion

Conflict Occurrence Frequencies.-The evidence supports

the hypothesis that, in closed-field situa- tions, disagreements arise more frequently between children and their friends than be- tween children and their acquaintances. This difference does not derive from the more extensive socializing of friends since the number of utterances occurring between the children was accounted for within the statistical analysis. The evidence thus sug- gests that friends, as compared with acquain- tances, experience fewer constraints on engaging in disagreements with their com- panions in the closed-field situation and/or greater motivation to disagree.

Although our subjects were not ques- tioned about these issues, findings from ear- lier studies are consistent with the foregoing interpretation. First, children believe that friendship relations are based on loyalty and trust and expect their friends to be support- ive even when stress is encountered (Berndt & Perry, 1986; Bigelow & LaGaipa, 1975). Although children expect to be supported by their friends, they also anticipate disagree- ments with them (Furman & Bierman, 1984; Selman, 1980). Second, earlier studies show that friends are especially competitive with

one another when winning relates to self- evaluation (Tesser, Campbell, & Smith, 1984). Although the importance to the chil- dren of winning at "Snake Pit" is unknown, it is possible that the prospect of losing to a friend in our experimental situation was more ego-deflating than the prospect of los- ing to an acquaintance, thereby generating more competitiveness and contention be- tween friends than between nonfriends. Taken together, the results suggest that a "climate" exists between friends in closed- field situations in which the children are freer to oppose one another and, simulta- neously, more motivated to disagree than they are with nonfriends.

Only two earlier studies deal with friendship status and conflict in closed-field situations. Our results are consistent with one (Gottman, 1983) but not the other (Berndt et al., 1988). When conflicts oc- curred more frequently between friends than between nonfriends (including this in- vestigation), variation in the total amount of social interaction was taken into account in the statistical analysis. When conflict occur- rence did not vary according to friendship status (Berndt et al., 1988), total amount of conversation was not taken into account in the analysis. Whether this difference in com- parative strategy accounts for the different results among these studies is uncertain. We stress, however, that the higher incidence of conflict among friends than among non- friends in the current investigation did not occur as a result of variation in the total amount of conversational interaction oc- curring between the children.

Duration and intensity.-The disagree- ments that occurred between friends lasted longer than those that occurred between nonfriends, thereby showing that conflicts between friends and nonfriends differed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Some of the extra time used by friends was spent talking; friends stood their ground under these circumstances, too (see below). But, since friends and nonfriends conversed in equivalent amounts during these disagree- ments, the greater time used by friends than by nonfriends must reflect strategy differ- ences other than sheer amount of talk.

Mean conflict intensity ratings were very low. The near-significant difference be- tween friends and nonfriends needs to be regarded cautiously, suggesting only that friends may disagree less mildly than non- friends, not that friends tended to disagree

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Hartup et al. 453

more intensely than nonfriends. The chil- dren were restrained during disagreements with their friends, consistent with steadily accumulating evidence that conflict manage- ment bears a strong relation to friendship formation and maintenance (Katz et al., 1992). The extremely attenuated conflicts occurring between nonfriends probably re- flect the politeness norms commonly in- voked when people interact with acquain- tances or strangers.

Conflict Talk Conflict talk consisted mainly of asser-

tions; negotiation and compromise occurred infrequently. And, indeed, conflict resolu- tion was most commonly achieved when, after a series of assertions ("you should move ahead, not back"), the children simply stopped disagreeing and continued with the game. This scenario closely resembles con- flict resolution in everyday life since natural- istic studies show that, during children's dis- agreements, negotiation occurs relatively infrequently whereas disengagement occurs quite often (Hartup et al., 1988; Vespo & Caplan, 1988).

Rather than varying directly with friend- ship status, however, assertions in this in- vestigation varied as a joint function of friendship status and sex. Our sex differ- ences in assertive talk are similar to sex differences noted in other communication studies: Girls used assertions with rationales more frequently than boys whereas boys used assertions without rationales more fre- quently than girls. Among earlier investiga- tors, Sachs (1987) reported that girls at- tempted to keep one another involved in discussion whereas boys simply told their companions what to do. Similarly, Miller, Danaher, and Forbes (1986) reported greater "conflict mitigation" among girls but greater use of threats and force among boys. Finally, Sheldon (1990) noted that, during conflicts, girls were not unassertive; rather, the girls attempted to bring about agreement and to maintain interaction more frequently than the boys. Girls' greater use of assertions with rationales in our experiment thus constitutes further evidence of female concerns about relationships and social well-being. At the same time, boys' greater use of assertions without rationales constitutes additional evi- dence of male attention to mastery and status.

While these sex differences have been widely remarked (see Maccoby, 1990), our results show that these differences charac-

terize only interactions between friends. Sex differences were not evident among non- friends. Actually, no earlier investigator ever examined sex differences in conflict talk be- tween friends and nonfriends separately. But, since those studies were conducted mostly in natural settings (e.g., playgrounds or neighborhoods), the sex differences re- ported probably occurred during talk be- tween friends rather than talk between acquaintances or strangers. Our results, however, demonstrate that sex differences in assertive conflict talk do not occur between children who are not friends.

Why should sex differences in conflict assertiveness manifest themselves with friends but not with nonfriends? Our data provide no clear-cut answers, although one would guess that these differences are re- lated to other sex differences in friendship relations: For example, girls' friendship net- works are smaller than boys', and these at- tachments are more intense (Bukowski & Kramer, 1986; Eder & Hallinan, 1978), con- ditions consistent with the greater tendency among girls than among boys to explain themselves during arguments with their friends. Children who are not friends may ignore gender considerations in their inter- action, worrying instead about politeness or ingratiation during conflicts with one an- other. Although these hypotheses are mere speculations, we can conclude that sex dif- ferences in children's conflict talk are tied to relationships and do not reflect general differences between boys and girls.

Conclusion Our results suggest that conflicts are

more frequent and lengthier between friends than between nonfriends in closed- field settings. Other studies demonstrate that conflicts in open-field settings occur less frequently and are less intense with friends than with nonfriends. Across studies, then, setting conditions (open vs. closed) and part- ner identity (friend vs. nonfriend) appear to interact in conflict management. This inter- action has never been examined directly, that is, within a single experiment. Although the current literature suggests that conflict behavior among children varies according to both setting and friendship status, this no- tion is a challenging hypothesis, not an es- tablished fact.

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