Palmen, H. M. H., Van Roij, C. J. L. M., Vermande, M. M., Dekovic, M., & Van Aken, M. A. G. (2006).Gender differences in friendship needs, Kind en Adolescent, 27 (1), 44-55.
Summary: The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are differences in friendship needs of boys and girls, and whether there is reason to distinguish two different worlds, as is sometimes done in the literature about friendships. A Dutch translation of the ‘Close Friendship Questionnaire’ (cfq) was filled in by boys (n = 664) and girls (n = 638) in the sixth grade of elementary school. Analyses revealed that girls reported more communal needs (for example: intimacy, love and affection) than boys did, whereas boys and girls both reported having more communal than agentic needs (for example: competition, power and status). Boys did not differ from girls when it came to having agentic needs. Moreover, the relations between having communal or agentic needs and social preference by peers were the same for boys and girls. The conclusion is that in our study gender differences in friendship needs are not as great as is often pointed out.