Friendship goals and motives for regulating negative emotional expressions on friendship satisfaction

Relationship between the goals of friendships and motives for regulating negative emotional expressions (NEE) on satisfaction with friendships was investigated. University students (N = 160) responded to questionnaires assessing three variables, friendship goals, motives for regulating negative emotional expressions, and friendship satisfaction. Cluster analysis for estimating the friendship goals extracted three clusters: Self-defensive group, Active communication group, and Non-attention to others group. The self-defensive group regulated NEE by considering others in physically harmful situations(i.e., spilling something on my dress and not apologizing) and by maintaining relationships with others in verbally harmful situations (i.e., saying nasty things). The active communication group regulated NEE by not abandoning mutual understanding in verbally harmful situations and demonstrated a satisfaction with the friendship. The Non-attention to others group regulated NEE through solving problems by themselves and not maintaining friendships with others in physically harmful situations. These results indicated that regulating NEE with the hope of mutually communicating with friends resulted in high satisfaction with friendships, whereas, regulating NEE by burdening friendships did not result in a high satisfaction.

regulating emotional expressions

motives for regulating

friendship goal

friendship satisfaction