As collegiettes, we have learned that friends really do come and go, and often times, the smaller number of people that we consider close friends, the better. But, back as middle schoolers, everyone was our friend, until we stopped talking to them in high school, and then the same thing happened when college came. But, a new study has found why your 7th grade friendship didn’t last.
According to Science of Us from NY Mag, a new study in Psychological Science, led by Amy C. Hartl from Florida Atlantic University, was conducted and found that only one percent of friendships created in 7th grade were still solid by senior year of high school. The study used 410 participants and tracked their friendships, each year, from 7th to 12th grade, finding that kids’ friendships fell apart due to difference in interests.
Hartl and her co-authors, Brett Laursen of Florida Atlantic and Antonius H. N. Cillessen of Radboud University, wanted to research whether certain attributes in kids’ personalities, like sex, age and popularity led to the demise of middle-school friends, however this was not the case. Therefore, a girl was no more likely to lose a friendship than a boy. What mattered were the differences between friends; so a friendship between those with a better academic record and those without, was more likely to end.
Due to “cognitive and emotional changes,” Hartl says that for children, friendship breakups during middle school are the hardest, as adolescent years “elevate the significance of friendships at the same time that growing independence from parents heightens interconnections between friends.” The study also concluded that about half of all friendships during middle school do not last and friendships often don’t survive the migration to middle school or high school.
With that, real friendships are the ones that stand the test of time.