The protective role of friendships in middle school is well established, yet no research to date has examined how to build friendships among middle school peers. In the present research, we adapted the Fast Friends procedure for inducing interpersonal closeness to promote friendships among students (n = 301) in middle school. Given the growing diversity in the K-12 population and the benefits of cross-ethnic friendships for ethnic majority and minority youth, we examined whether the intervention was equally effective at fostering same- and cross-ethnic friendships. Results indicated that the intervention successfully increased interpersonal closeness and friendships for participants in both same- and cross-ethnic conditions. Implications for using Fast Friends to promote the healthy social development of adolescent youth are discussed.

中文翻译：

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从“快速朋友”到真正的朋友：接触干预能否促进中学友谊？

友谊在中学中的保护作用已经确立，但迄今为止还没有研究探讨如何在中学同学之间建立友谊。在本研究中，我们采用了 Fast Friends 程序来诱导人际亲密关系，以促进学生之间的友谊（n = 301）在中学。鉴于 K-12 人口的日益多样化以及跨种族友谊对少数族裔和少数族裔青年的好处，我们检查了干预是否同样有效地促进了同种族和跨种族友谊。结果表明，干预成功地增加了相同和跨种族条件下参与者的人际亲密度和友谊。讨论了使用 Fast Friends 促进青少年健康社会发展的意义。