Abstract
An adolescent male's relationship with his father and his best friend is investigated. 413 male college students filled out a rating scale in which each reported how much he felt understood by his father, mother, by best male friend, best female friend, by favorite teacher, and by any additional person he wished to designate. The ratings were on a 7-point scale, ranging from “virtually a total stranger” to “complete understanding.” The mean ratings for a son's feeling of being understood by significant others was analyzed by a procedure for the multiple comparison of means described by Games (1971). The sons felt relatively more understood by their best friends than they did by their fathers. Implications of the findings for a theory of friendship and for psychotherapy with adolescent males are discussed.
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