In frustration Gandalf throws down his staff and silently sits before the door. He even strikes the door with staff while yelling the word for open in every language he knows. Gandalf, who is both a scholar and wizard, tries “opening words” and spells in the languages of elves. Gimli, the dwarf, assumes the instructions mean friends will know the secret word that opens the doors.
They discovered the door and even the instructions, “Speak, friend, and enter”, but no one can figure out what word opens the door. Reasons for the finding, say the researchers, may range from greater levels of intimacy and understanding to assistance with pragmatic needs to enhanced self-esteem.I have always been amused and challenged by the passage in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings where Gandalf and his pilgrims are stymied by the door into the mines of Moria. Sometimes all a friend needed to do to keep the best friendship going was to affirm the other person's identity as a member of the given group ("You're a real Christian") or even the status of the group itself ("It's so cool that you play sax for the Stanford band!"). But Weisz and Wood found that friends offering such support could also be outside the group. But when the researchers controlled for these qualities, only a single factor-social-identity support-predicted whether a friend would ultimately be elevated to the position of "best." Best friends often were part of the same crowd-the same fraternity, say, or tennis team. Overall closeness, contact, and supportiveness predicted whether a good friendship was maintained. Over that period, the students were asked to describe levels of closeness, contact, general supportiveness, and social identity support with same- sex friends.
Weisz and Wood showed the importance of social identity support by following a group of college students from freshman through senior year.
0 kommentar(er)
