Self-Referent Motivation and the Intrinsic Quality of Friendship

Some observations suggest that friendships are developed and maintained because they involve some form of reinforcement or interpersonal reward. Other observations suggest that friendship has an intrinsic, end-in-itself quality making it unnecessary, if not contradictory, to assume that friendships must be rewarding to be formed and sustained. The present paper outlines a model of friendship based on a conception of self and self-referent motivation. The model represents, in part, an effort to reconcile the observed rewardingness of friendship with its intrinsic, end-in-itself character.