Three Aspects Of Interracial Friendship

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Friendship is a special type of relationship and it plays an important role in people’s daily life. Friendships satisfy people’s need to belong (Mattingly, Oswald, & Clark, 2011). When defining a friendship, we need to consider three aspects: behaviors, underlying feelings, and motivations (Hruschka, 2010, p.17). According to Hruschka (2010), the most common behaviors observed in a friendship include socializing, mutual aid, and self-disclosure. People spend time to share activities with friends as well as efforts to acquire more information from them. Friendships usually involve generalized or balanced reciprocity depending on the subjective closeness of friends. It is argued that close friendships may have an evolutionary benefit to …show more content…
Interracial friendship can reduce intergroup bias, increase students ' intellectual self-confidence and level of educational aspiration (Antonio, 2004). Interracial friendship further promotes cross-racial interaction, as people are more likely to seek out and interact with people from the same ethnic groups as their existing friends (Bowman & Park, 2015). Beth is an African American lady while I am Chinese. Being friends with Beth, I get the opportunity to meet and befriend with people from different ethnic groups as well as to see the world in a different point of view. Due to my favorable friendship with Beth, I have positive attitudes toward people from different cultures and actively search for more out-group friends. People’s personality and previous social experience are the predictors of people’s preference for interracial friendship. A study conducted by Levin & Sidanius (2003) reveals that in-group bias, intergroup anxiety, and out-group friendship are predictors of people’s preferences for interracial friendship. In-group bias states that people tend to favor members from their own group over out-group members. People with more in-group bias and intergroup anxiety are shown to have fewer friends from other groups. On the contrary, people who are more open-minded, having less in-group bias and intergroup anxiety are more likely to have more out-group friends. In addition, people who have previous positive interactions with out-group members tend to have more out-group friends. People who have more out-group friendships are more likely to have less in-group bias and intergroup anxiety (Levin & Sidanius, 2003). Moreover, prior ethnic attitudes and orientations on friendship choices may play a role in interracial friendship (Levin & Sidanus,

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