Aging encourages people to enhance their friend and family relationships. In general, the elderly tend to have more heterogeneity in relationships as they grow older. They depend on these relationships for instrumental, financial and emotional support. As a result, older adults who have many friends and have close ties with their families are more socially and psychologically well-adjusted than those who are alienated from their networks. Article: An assumption runs throughout the gerontological literature that having friends and active relationships with family members is better than not having them. Since the 1960s, when social gerontologists began debating the relative merits of the disengagement and activity theories, researchers have used the number of friends, the existence of active family relationships, and the amount of contact older adults have with these presumed intimates as indicators of aging well. Recently, however, researchers have recognized that not all personal relationships are good ones and not all social interactions affect older adults positively (e.g., Rook, 1984, 1989). In considering the connection between personal relationships and aging well, it is thus necessary to deconstruct friendship and kin relationships, to examine their myriad dimensions, and to recognize that merely having relationships is not an indication that someone is aging well. The tendency of researchers to assume that all personal relationships are positive is not the only limitation characteristic of the investigations on this topic. In both the family and friendship literatures, samples are often less than adequate, either being representative of very specific subpopulations of older adults or not being representative of any population at all (i.e., snowball, volunteer, or other nonprobability samples). Personal relationship researchers tend to study single respondents rather than pairs of friends or family members. When they do investigate dyads, they often study them in isolation rather than considering them in the context of the family or friendship network. Both literatures are also primarily descriptive rather than theoretically motivated, and, consequently, what is known about relationships is little more than a list of findings of all studies. Each of these personal relationship literatures has additional limitations. For example, researchers have rarely studied friendships longitudinally, making it impossible to examine changes in friendship as people age and to separate out age, period, and cohort effects. Gerontological friendship researchers usually study single-race (almost always Caucasian) or single-sex (usually female) populations; when they do include more than one race or both

Abstract:Friendship is not institutionalized in American society; hence, perceptions of it vary. Rather than studying sources of this variation, most scholars ignore the complexity, bemoan the difficulty it causes in analysis, or eliminate it. We examined the frequency of use of previously studied and emergent characteristics of friendship as definitional criteria and the age, gender, and cultural patterns associated with them. Data are from two North American cities: the Andrus Study of Older Adult Friendships in southeastern United States (28 women and 25 men, age 55 to 84), and the Social Relations Project in western Canada (39 women and 25 men, age 55 to 87). Definitions of friendship differed across age and gender groups within each culture, but most striking is cross-cultural variation.

In light of the increase in the number and rigor of studies on adult friendship and the tendency of kin and neighbor relationships to have become more structurally similar to friendship, this is a crucial juncture at which to pause and assess what we know and do not know about adult friendship, to begin a needed theoretical synthesis, to identify gaps in the literature and to produce guidelines for future research. The purpose of this article is to present an integrative conceptual framework, incorporating both sociological and psychological perspectives, for use in these endeavors. The framework posits that the social structural and psychological aspects of individual characteristics operate together to shape behavioral motifs which, in turn, influence friendship patterns (dyadic and network structure and phases). Furthermore, dyadic and network structure and phases affect one another through interactive friendship processes. The elements of this integrative framework and the relationships among them vary by structural and cultural context. Article: In contrast to other forms of intimate relationships in our society, friendship is uniquely voluntary. Whereas relatives are designated by blood or legal ties and neighbors by proximity, friends are selected. Furthermore, friendship is a relatively uninstitutionalized relationship without standard rituals, norms or nomenclature to guide the partners. Yet, friendship choices are not wholly fortuitous, nor is amicable behavior unscripted (Allan, 1989). Scholars who view friendship as voluntary pay special attention to dispositional factors in friendship formation and maintenance. In contrast, those who have a sociological perspective emphasize the effects of social structure and influence largely beyond individual control. These two traditions are distinct in another way as well. Dispositional theorists tend to focus on the interactive processes that take place in friendship dyads, whereas structuralists tend to study the form of individuals' entire friendship networks (Blieszner & Adams, 1992). With two decades of research on record, it is now possible to construct frameworks for the integration of these two perspectives. This is a propitious moment to pause and assess how friend relationships are studied. Kin and neighbor relationships are becoming more similar to the less often studied friend relationship. People now have more freedom in choosing where they live and in determining the quality of their family ties. Understanding how personality and social structure interact to affect friendship

No abstract

Friendship is a relationship that can endure across the entire lifespan, serving a vital role for sustaining social connectedness in late life when other relationships may become unavailable. This article begins with a description of the importance of studying friendship in late life and the benefits of friendship for older adults, pointing to the value of additional research for enhancing knowledge about this crucial bond. Next is discussion of theoretical approaches for conceptualizing friendship research, followed by identification of emerging areas of late-life friendship research and novel questions that investigators could explore fruitfully. We include a presentation of innovative research methods and existing national and international data sets that can advance late-life friendship research using large samples and cross-national comparisons. The final section advocates for development and assessment of interventions aimed at improving friendship and reducing social isolation among older adults.