Stability and Commitment in Friendships

Changes in Friendship Commitment: Comparing Geographically Close and Long-Distance Young-Adult Friendships

“…396 A. J. Johnson et al In light of such views of friendship (Wiseman, 1986), researchers often assume that LD friendships are uncommon and naturally less close than GC friendships (Stafford, 2005), as well as more likely to erode for at least three reasons: (a) One must invest more time and energy in them, (b) one cannot as easily engage in frequent talk, and (c) one cannot as readily provide emotional and instrumental support (Fehr, 1999). However, such views assume the primacy of face-to-face communication in interpersonal relationships, irrespective of the increasingly diverse means of communication open to individuals.…”

“…Ostensibly, friendships are more likely than other relationships to end because of these factors (Cramer, 1998). Transitions, especially a loss of proximity, reportedly are particularly disruptive to friendships (Fehr, 1999). 396 A. J.…”

“…The long-distance (LD) friendship presents an interesting test case for exploring how individuals manage interpersonal relationships for which there is little face-to-face contact and challenges certain assumptions scholars make about commitment, relational development, and even the very concept of friendship. For example, although traditional conceptualizations of friendship suggest that distance may cause a relationship to deteriorate, if not terminate (Fehr, 1999), many people, particularly college students, report having psychologically close, but geographically LD, friendships (A. J. Johnson, Haigh, Becker, Craig, & Wigley, 2004;Rohlfing, 1995).…”

My Friends Are My Estate: Friendship Experiences Mediate the Relationship Between Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts and Happiness

“…Although offline friendships might be higher in overall quality than online friendships, the differences become less pronounced especially for friendships lasting more than a year (Chan and Cheng 2004). As for research focusing on the impact of physical distance on friendships, some studies have shown that maintaining long-distance (LD) friendships, compared to geographically-close (GC) friendships, might be a challenge (Fehr 1999;Weiner and Hannum 2013) since GC friends have many more opportunities to engage in maintenance behaviors than LD friends. Yet, other studies on the topic found that LD and GC friendships are more similar than different (Becker et al 2009;Stafford 2005).…”

The Individual and Group Loyalty Scales (IGLS): Construction and Preliminary Validation

“…The Group Loyalty Scale, which emerged somewhat unexpectedly from the data, should be examined with other existing group loyalty scales (e.g., Scott, 1965) to establish convergent validity. Along these lines, it would also be interesting to compare the individual loyalty construct to that of commitment in both friendship settings (Fehr, 1999) and in the context of close romantic relationships (Johnson, 1999;Rusbult et al, 2001). Finally, because loyalty is likely considered by many to be a human strength, it would be worthwhile to examine the relation between individual and group loyalty and Peterson and Seligman's (2004) list of core virtues.…”