Cohesion and distancing are both relevant characteristics of interpersonal relationships; the first pertains to the constitution and strengthening of the relationship, the second to the assertion of individual autonomy. This study explores the use of indices of cohesion and distancing in drawings made by boys and girls 6‐ to 11‐year‐ old showing themselves with a friend. The main hypothesis is that children at each age level would introduce in their drawings pictorial indices of cohesion, as these are necessary and sufficient to show that a relationship exists; distancing indices would be added as options. Drawings were scored on two scales, each composed of six subscales, measuring either cohesive elements or distancing elements. Separate variance analyses for cohesion and distancing (ages x sex x scores in the subscales) yielded main effects of the different subscales and of sex (boys obtained higher distancing scores than girls). Two factors, pertaining to spatial organization and figure interaction, emerge both for cohesion and distancing in two separate factor analyses. Another variance analysis (age x sex x total cohesion and distancing scores) confirmed the hypothesized prevalence of cohesion over distancing. Finally, cross‐tabulation of cohesion and distancing scores allowed detection of various combinations of cohesive and distancing elements in the pictorial representation of friendship. As expected, no age‐linked effect emerged in the above‐mentioned analyses.
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Bombi et al. (1994) studied this question.