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Developmental Psychology-

In the typical sequence of an individual's emotional development, friendships come after parental bonding and before pair bonding. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life. The absence of friends can be emotionally damaging.

The evolutionary psychology approach to human development has led to the theory of Dunbar's number, proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. He theorized that there is a limit of approximately 150 people with whom a human can maintain stable social relationships.

Childhood-

In childhood, friendships are often based on the sharing of toys, and the enjoyment received from performing activities together. These friendships are maintained through affection, sharing, and creative playtime. While sharing is difficult for children at this age, they are more likely to share with someone they consider to be a friend (Newman & Newman, 2012). As children mature, they become less individualized and are more aware of others. They begin to see their friends' points of view, and enjoy playing in groups. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. Establishing good friendships at a young age helps a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life (Newman & Newman, 2012). In a 1975 study, Bigelow and La Gaipa found that expectations for a "best friend" become increasingly complex as a child gets older. The study investigated such criteria in a sample of 480 children between the ages of six and fourteen. Their findings highlighted three stages of development in friendship expectations. In the first stage, children emphasized shared activities and the importance of geographical closeness. In the second, they emphasized sharing, loyalty and commitment. In the final stage, they increasingly desired similar attitudes, values and interests. According to Berndt, children prize friendships that are high in prosocial behavior, intimacy, and other positive features; they are troubled by friendships that are high in conflict, dominance, rivalry, and other negative features. High-quality friendships have often been assumed to have positive effects on many aspects of children's social development. Perceived benefits from such friendships include enhanced social success, but they apparently do not include an effect on children's general self-esteem. Numerous studies with adults suggest that friendships and other supportive relationships do enhance self-esteem (Berndt, 2002). Other potential benefits of friendship include the opportunity to learn about empathy and problem solving. Coaching from parents can be useful in helping children to make friends. Eileen Kennedy-Moore describes three key ingredients of children's friendship formation: (1) openness, (2) similarity, and (3) shared fun. Parents can also help children understand social guidelines they haven't learned on their own. Drawing from research by Robert Selman and others, Kennedy-Moore outlines developmental stages in children's friendship, reflecting an increasing capacity to understand others' perspectives.

Adolescence-

A study examined over 9,000 American adolescents to determine how their engagement in problem behavior (such as stealing, fighting, truancy) was related to their friendships. Findings indicated that adolescents were less likely to engage in problem behavior when their friends did well in school, participated in school activities, avoided drinking, and had good mental health. The opposite was found regarding adolescents who did engage in more problem behavior. Whether adolescents were influenced by their friends to engage in problem behavior depended on how much they were exposed to those friends, and whether they and their friendship groups "fit in" at school (Crosnoe, R., & Needham, B., 2004).

A study by researchers from Purdue University found that friendships formed during post-secondary education last longer than friendships formed earlier.

Adulthood-

Life events such as marriage, parenthood, and accelerated career development can complicate friendships in the transition from young adulthood to middle adulthood. After marriage, both women and men report having fewer friends of the opposite sex (Friendships, 2012).

Adults may find it particularly difficult to maintain meaningful friendships in the workplace. "The workplace can crackle with competition, so people learn to hide vulnerabilities and quirks from colleagues. Work friendships often take on a transactional feel; it is difficult to say where networking ends and real friendship begins."Most adults value the financial security of their jobs more than friendship with coworkers.

The majority of adults have an average of two close friends.

Old age-

As family responsibilities and vocational pressures become less, friendships become more important. Among the elderly, friendships can provide links to the larger community; especially for people who cannot go out as often, interactions with friends allow for continued societal interaction. Additionally, older adults in declining health who remain in contact with friends show improved psychological well-being.

Although older adults prefer familiar and established relationships over new ones, friendship formation can continue in old age. With age, elders report that the friends to whom they feel closest are fewer in number and live in the same community. They tend to choose friends whose age, sex, race, ethnicity, and values are like their own. Compared with younger people, fewer older people report other-sex friendships. Older women, in particular, have more secondary friends—people who are not intimates, but with whom they spend time occasionally, such as in groups that meet for lunch or bridge.

Making a friend-

Three significant factors make the formation of a friendship possible:

proximity, which means being near enough to see each other or do things together;

repeatedly encountering the person informally and without making special plans to see each other; and

opportunities to share ideas and personal feelings with each other.

Friendships end for many different reasons. Sometimes friends move away from each other and are forced to move on due to the distance. As long as the two people have met face-to-face in the past, however, digital technology has made geographic distance less of an obstacle to maintaining an existing friendship than it would have been previously. Sometimesdivorce causes an end to friendships, as people drop one or both of the divorcing people. At a younger age friendships may end as a result of acceptance into new social groups. (Friendships, 2009; Berry, 2012)

Friendships may end by fading quietly away or may end suddenly. How and whether to talk about the end of a friendship is a matter of etiquette that depends on the circumstances.

Children with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may not have difficulty forming friendships, though they may have a hard time keeping them, due to impulsive behavior and hyperactivity. Children with Attention deficit disorder (ADD) may not have as much trouble keeping and maintaining friendships, though inattentiveness may complicate the processes.

Parents of children with ADHD worry about their children's ability to form long-lasting friendships. According to Edelman, "Making and keeping friends requires 'hundreds' of skills – talking, listening, sharing, being empathetic, and so on. These skills do not come naturally to children with ADD". Difficulty listening to others also inhibits children with ADD or ADHD from forming good friendships. Children with these disorders can also drive away others by "blurting out unkind comments". Their disruptive behavior can become too distracting to classmates.

Autism-

Children with autism spectrum disorders usually have some difficulty forming friendships. Certain symptoms of autism can interfere with the formation of interpersonal relations, such as a preference for routine actions, resistance to change, obsession with particular interests or rituals, and a lack of typical social skills. Children with autism spectrum disorders have been found to be more likely to be close friends of one person, rather than having groups of friends. Additionally, they are more likely to be close friends of other children with some sort of a disability. A sense of parental attachment aids in the quality of friendships in children with autism spectrum disorders; a sense of attachment with one's parents compensates for a lack of social skills that would usually inhibit friendships.

With time, moderation, and proper instruction, children with autism spectrum disorder are able to form friendships after realizing their own strengths and weaknesses. A study done by Frankel et al. showed that parental intervention and instruction plays an important role in such children developing friendships. Along with parental intervention, school professionals play an important role in teaching social skills and peer interaction. Paraprofessionals, specifically one-on-one aides and classroom aides, are often placed with children with autism spectrum disorders in order to facilitate friendships and guide the child in making and maintaining substantial friendships.

Although lessons and training may help peers of children with autism, bullying is still a major concern in social situations. According to Anahad O'Connor of The New York Times, bullying is most likely to occur against autistic children who have the most potential to live independently, such as those with Asperger syndrome. Such children are more at risk because they have as many of the rituals and lack of social skills as children with full autism, but they are more likely to bemainstreamed in school, since they are on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Children on the autism spectrum have more difficulty picking up on social cues of when they are maliciously being made fun of, so they do not always know when they are being bullied.

Health-

Conventional wisdom suggests that good friendships enhance an individual's sense of happiness and overall well-being. Indeed, a number of studies have found that strong social supports improve a woman's prospects for good health and longevity. Conversely, loneliness and a lack of social supports have been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, viralinfections, and cancer, as well as higher mortality rates overall. Two researchers have even termed friendship networks a "behavioral vaccine" that boosts both physical and mental health.

While there is an impressive body of research linking friendship and health, the precise reasons for the connection remain unclear. Most of the studies in this area are large prospective studies that follow people over a period of time, and while there may be a correlation between the two variables (friendship and health status), researchers still do not know if there is a cause and effect relationship, such as the notion that good friendships actually improve health. A number of theories have attempted to explain this link. These theories have included that good friends encourage their friends to lead more healthy lifestyles; that good friends encourage their friends to seek help and access services when needed; that good friends enhance their friends' coping skills in dealing with illness and other health problems; and that good friends actually affect physiological pathways that are protective of health. 

Quality-

In Diderot's Encyclopedie his definition offers an early modern conception of good friendship in the 18th century. He writes:

"Friendship is nothing other than the practice of maintaining a decent and pleasant commerce with someone . Is friendship no more than that? Friendship , it will be said, is not limited to those terms; it goes beyond those narrow boundaries. But those who make this observation do not consider that two people do not, without being friends, maintain a connection that has nothing incorrect about it and that gives them reciprocal pleasure. The commerce that we may have with men involves either the mind or the heart. The pure commerce of the mind is called acquaintance ; the commerce in which the heart takes an interest because of the pleasure it derives from it is friendship . I see no idea more accurate and more suitable for explaining all that friendship is in itself and likewise all its properties."

The qualities that make up a good friendship have changed over time. Presently, friendship has two dimensions: quality and conflict (Demir, 2007). The quality of friendship is important for a person's well-being. High quality friendships have good ways of resolving conflict, ultimately leading to stronger and healthier relationships. Good friendship has been called "life enhancing" (Helm, 2012). Engaging in activities with friends intensifies pleasure and happiness. The quality of friendships relates to happiness because friendship "provides a context where basic needs are satisfied" (Demir, 2010).[full citation needed] Quality friendships lead an individual to feel more comfortable with his or her personal identity. Higher friendship quality directly contributes to self-esteem, self-confidence, and social development (Berndt, 2002).

In Animals-

Friendship is also found among animals of higher intelligence, such as highermammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals. Cross-species friendships may also occur between two non-human animals, such as dogs and cats.

A study conducted by Krista McLennan, a doctoral student at Northampton University, investigated friendship in cows. McLennan measured the heart rates of cattle on three separate occasions to determine their stress levels. In the first trial, the cows were isolated from the rest of their herd. The second trial penned the animal with another cow that they were familiar with. Finally, the third trial put two random cows together. Her research showed that the cows were much more stressed when alone or with an unfamiliar cow than they were with one of their friends. This supports the idea that cows are social animals, capable of forming close bonds with each other. McLennan suggests that if farmers group friends together, it could benefit the cows by reducing their stress, improving their overall health and even producing a greater milk yield.

Within the context of human relationships the definition and display of female bonding can be dependent on multiple factors such as age, culture, race and marital status. For example, some studies have shown that there is relatively strong female bonding evidence which is shared among single women. It is evident that this particular cohort of women sees each other as lifelong confidants due to the absence of a lifelong commitment to a spouse. Along with this, the lack of commitment allows women to develop and maintain the strong ties between other single female friends.

Female bonding can be further explored within the human context of relationships within the family. For example, the positive mother-daughter ties which develop have been described to provide immense emotional, financial and instrumental support; indicating that female bonding is present. In an alternative study, a mother described her daughters as “more like sisters, communicating that equality…was an essential feature of their current relationships. In addition to mother-daughter ties, sibling ties can be carefully examined for further exemplification in female bonding. There is much evidence that sister-sister ties are the strongest ties that exist, out of the possible combinations of gendered sibling ties which are shared. In a recent study, an interviewee described her relationship shared with her sister as the most enduring and intimate of her life. This further suggests the emotional sharing which is said to be the primary foundation on which female bonding is founded.