[The psychological meaning of the female friend among Mexican adolescents: a gender comparison]

Abstract

This study constitutes a continuation of a series of approximation to the knowledge of an adolescent stage. The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in that the females and males adolescents conceptualize a "female friend". With this in mind, we analyzed the information with the semantic network technique in 160 adolescents: 80 females and 80 males divided in two groups of analysis: 8th and 12th school years in private schools from Mexico City. The results permit to observe some differences in their conceptualizations by gender and educative level; but also we observed similarities in the way of to conceptualize a "female friend". Perhaps these findings derived from a cultural tradition that influence the social interactions and by an evolutive stage: the adolescence, when the establishment of the psychosocial identity is an important need and demand.