Sociology Friendship
by
Beate Volker
  • LAST REVIEWED: 08 October 2020
  • LAST MODIFIED: 27 July 2016
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0170

Introduction

The question “who is friends with whom” is nontrivial in sociology, because friendship—in particular the degree to which people from different social groups are friend with each other—is an indicator for a society’s social cohesion and openness. Because friendship ties are weaker than marriage ties and not ascribed as family ties, they are a better indicator of societal openness than these other ties. Although friendship patterns are an important indicator for these macro-level processes, friendship is mostly studied in the micro level. A large part of research is devoted to the study of friendship patterns among different groups in society and within different settings such as rural or urban areas or the workplace and the neighborhood. Next to marriage, friendship is the most intimate, trustful, and voluntarily chosen tie people maintain. However, unlike marriage, friendship is a nonexclusive relationship, and there are no social institutions defining and protecting this relationship. It is this freedom from institutional rules that makes the relationship particularly interesting for the social sciences. For example, an important research question is to what degree people chose friends according to their preferences and to what degree structural constraints influence these choices. Furthermore, in modern societies, where ascribed bonds with family are often at risk, friendships might become even more important than before, because it is the type of relationship that can provide similar functions as a family. However, this potential role of friendship can be counteracted by enhanced trends toward efficiency, time pressure, and rationalization. Accordingly, another important strand of research deals with the question whether friendship patterns changed along with modern developments as well as through one’s life. Finally, it is without any doubt that friends influence each other—for the good or the bad—and that having friends is associated with better health and well-being. How this exactly works and can be explained is also an important topic in the literature on friendship.

Journals

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, many journals from sociology, psychology, and educational science publish studies on friendship relationships. A few deserve comments in particular; but the list is not exhaustive. Social Networks is the most important sociological journal on the study of friendships as it focuses on all aspects of social relationships. In addition, the general sociological journals such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces publish articles on friendships. Journals such as Urban Affairs Review are also interested in relational patterns and in friendships in particular, although the focus is more often on urban issues, neighborhoods, and the impact of local places in general. A more social-psychological but still interdisciplinary journal is the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. As far as friendship is discussion in comparison with family and marriage, the Journal of Marriage and the Family also publishes articles on friendship. Journals that focus on particular aspects of social groups, gender, migrants, or youth/adolescence are high in number, and they are all publishing papers on friendships; examples are Migration Studies and the Journal of Research in Adolescence.

What Is a Friend?

For long, friendship has been a phenomenon studied mostly by social psychologists. During the last decades, however, more and more studies have explicitly embedded friendship in the sociological literature. For these general overviewing works, see Allan 1989, who places the notion of friendship in sociological arguments and explicitly discusses the roles of kinship as opposed to friendship. Adams and Allan 1998 collects a number of papers constitute a bridge between social psychology and sociology. They put friendship in context, meaning that the friendship is not only a dyadic relation but depends on the broader social environment. In an anthropological study, Bell and Coleman 1999 investigates the phenomenon in a more comparative perspective while asking whether basic assumptions about friendship are the same in different cultures. Among others topics, the authors discuss how the demarcation between family and friends differs between cultures. Similar, Hruschka 2010 discusses cross-cultural implications of the broad concept of friendship. Friendships are positioned in between kinship and romantic love. Hruschka 2010 also emphasizes that friendship is a very special relationship with a particular form of reciprocity involved: because of its long shadow of the future, friends do not expect that favors are immediately returned. Rather, friendship is characterized by reciprocal altruism and trust and by a long time horizon. In this regard, Blum 2009 and Spencer and Pahl 2006 emphasize the non-commercial, non-rational role of friendship and discuss the nature of this relationship in different periods of times. Importantly, Rubin 1986 and Fehr 1995 describe the importance and different processes of friendship through one’s life and stress that it is a highly important relationship in all stages of a person’s development. While friendships are often cited as being close to love relationships with regard to trust and closeness, Davis and Todd 1982 describes the differences between these two important types of relationships. Finally, friends are an important part of people’s core discussion network; see Marsden 1987. This part of the network is small and consists of close, trustful relationships, among which partner, friends, and family are most prominent.

  • Adams, R. G., and G. A. Allan, eds. 1998. Placing friendship in context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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    This book continues Allan 1989 but emphasizes the role of friendship as an interdisciplinary research theme. It is a collection of contributions from several scholars on psychological and socio-structural aspects of friendship.

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  • Allan, G. A. 1989. Friendship: Developing a sociological perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview.

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    The book is among the first systematic attempts to discuss friendship relationships from a sociological point of view. It focuses on factors outside the individual that constrain and shape friendship relationships. Thereby, it is not aimed to provide new theoretical insights but describes and discusses important empirical work.

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  • Bell, S., and S. Coleman. 1999. The anthropology of friendship. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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    In this book basic aspects of friendship relationships are discussed from a cross-cultural point of view. For example, it is discussed whether friendship is a modern Western type of relationship, and it compares friendship in different cultures.

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  • Blum, L. A. 2009. Friendship, altruism, and morality. 2d ed. London: Routledge.

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    This book gives an account of altruistic emotions in friendship relationships. Blum argues that theories that focus solely on rationality and obligation cannot capture the moral importance. In particular, different philosophical accounts on friendship are brought forward (e.g., Kant, Schopenhauer, and Hume) to show how the ideas of friendship relationships are embedded in social-philosophical traditions.

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  • Davis, K., and M. J. Todd. 1982. Friendship and love relationships. Advances in Descriptive Psychology 2:79–122.

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    The article describes differences between friendship and love relationships along a number of contrasting categories.

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  • Fehr, B. 1995. Friendship processes. New York: SAGE.

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    This book discusses theories on friendship as well as different aspects of the friendship process and its dynamics: how people actually get to know each other and how friendships are formed and maintained. In addition, attention is given to gender issues in friendship relationships.

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  • Hruschka, D. J. 2010. Friendship: Development, ecology and evolution of a relationship. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

    DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520265462.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The book brings together studies from different countries and cultures and is based on different types of data, ethnographic and experimental. It discusses how friendship varies between places and how the relationship is settled between romantic love and kinship. In addition, in a theoretical account, Hruschka argues that friendship is based on mutual solidarity, rather than tit-for-tat rationality.

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  • Marsden, P. 1987. Core discussion networks of Americans. American Sociological Review 52.1: 122–131.

    DOI: 10.2307/2095397Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This is a benchmark paper on the composition of network ties to confidants, the so-called core discussion networks.

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  • Rubin, L. B. 1986. Just friends: The role of friendship in our lives. New York: Harper Perennial.

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    This book is one of the earliest empirical studies on friendship. Based on empirical material from four hundred interviews, this book discusses the complexity of friendship relationships and their role for, for example, men and women. Next to the empirical material, the book provides an overview on the literature on friendship.

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  • Spencer, L., and R. E. Pahl. 2006. Rethinking friendship: Hidden solidarities today. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.

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    The book describes variations in friendship relationships and explores multiplexity in such relationships, for example, friendship between family members. Based on in-depth interviews with adults from different social strata.

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Seminal Literature

Many sociologists have made referrals to friendship and its role in society because issues of social cohesion are old but cogent, and relationships to friends are closely related to these issues. Simmel 1906 points out that modernization would cause friendships to become more fragmented and specialized. In general, the discussion is centered on the questions of (i) whether (changes in) social institutions, politics, or modernization influence friendship patterns, and (ii) whether friendship emerges as a consequence of homophily or meeting opportunity. With regard to the first question, Volker and Flap 2001 shows that friendship patterns in totalitarian societies differ from patterns in democratic ones. People in totalitarian society select friends more cautious and trust only the circle of close and intimate confidents. With regard to the second question, Lazarsfeld and Merton 1954 is a seminal study that discusses how homophily affects the selection of friends. When selecting friends, people are assumed to prefer others with a similar or higher social demographic status. This preference includes not only dimensions such as occupation or education but also religion, race, sex, and ethnicity. McPherson, et al. 2001 provides a review of the different dimensions of homophily in personal networks. Concerning structural opportunities for making contact with others, Blau and Schwartz 1984 demonstrates that the social composition of a setting clearly influences the level of resulting homophily. However, this research is on marriages and not on friendship. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of selection can assumed to be the same for both types of relations. Blum 1985 tests the macro-structural theory and shows that structure can overrule preferences: heterogeneity in social composition causes heterogeneous choices, even if preferences go in another direction. Although Fischer 1982 is more on social networks in general and not only on friendship relationships, it is the first comprehensive empirical study on personal relationships and how they differ between city dwellers and rural residents and between different social groups. The book shows that the cultural pessimistic hypothesis on the detrimental effects of urban life for social relationships does not hold. Fischer 1983 examines the relationships people actually label as “friends” and shows that to some extent friendship is a residual category for relationships that are not family, colleague, or neighbors. Furthermore, friendships are not always close and trustful; rather, they are characterized by shared activities such as going out or spending leisure time together. Finally, Silver 1990 studies the meaning of friendship in the modern commercial capitalist society and argues that modernization and rationalization has not diminished friendship. On the contrary, friendship has even gained importance: the demarcation between market and personal sentimental relationships is most clear in modern societies, and friendship is one of the important sentimental relationships.

  • Blau, P., and J. E. Schwartz. 1984. Crosscutting social circles. Orlando, FL: Academic.

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    The focus of the book is on a theory and empirical study of how social structures influence intergroup relationships. A number of structural conditions are discussed such as income inequality or ethnic heterogeneity and how they related to intermarriage. The book provides valuable arguments and hypotheses related to friendship relationships.

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  • Blum, T. 1985. Structural Constraints on Interpersonal Relations: A Test of Blau’s Macrosociological Theory. American Journal of Sociology 91.3: 511–521.

    DOI: 10.1086/228312Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Tests macrostructural theory on the explanation of contacts among people with different social characteristics.

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  • Fischer, C. S. 1982. To dwell among friends: Personal networks in town and city. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

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    A seminal study on people’s relationships and networks in town and cities. Tests the traditional cultural pessimist hypotheses that city life is morally, physically, and socially detrimental.

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  • Fischer, C. S. 1983. What do we mean by friend? An inductive study. Social Networks 3.4: 287–306.

    DOI: 10.1016/0378-8733(82)90004-1Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper discusses what aspects of relationships are correlated with the label “friend.”

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  • Lazarsfeld, P., and R. K. Merton. 1954. Friendship as a social process: A substantive and methodological analysis. In Freedom and control in modern society. Edited by M. Berger, T. Abel, and C. H. Page, 18–66. Toronto: Van Nostrand.

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    Establishes that homophily plays an important role in friendship contacts.

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  • McPherson, M., L. Smith Lovin, and J. Cook. 2001. Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology 27:415–444.

    DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper reviews the research on the different dimensions of homophily in personal networks, such as gender, age, ethnicity, and education.

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  • Silver, A. 1990. Friendship in commercial society: Eighteenth-century social theory and modern sociology. American Journal of Sociology 95.6: 1474–1504.

    DOI: 10.1086/229461Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses the role of the rising market economy for friendship relationships and whether commercial society actually diminishes friendship.

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  • Simmel, G. 1906. The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. American Journal of Sociology 11.4: 441–498.

    DOI: 10.1086/211418Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses information control in industrialized society and its role in different forms of relationships, such as friendship or marriage.

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  • Volker, B., and H. Flap. 2001. The liability of weak ties in communist societies: The case of the former GDR. Rationality and Society 13.4: 401–428.

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    This paper discusses that friendship networks are not independent from political institutions in a society. In totalitarian societies, people are aware of weaker ties and establish close and highly dense networks to friends and family.

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Theoretical Perspectives on Emergence and Maintenance of Friendship

The discussion about explanatory theories for who is becoming friends with whom is dominated by the discussion about demand versus supply side of social contacts. In fact, mechanisms cited can be subsumed under these two broader theoretical ideas. Both Demand-Side Mechanism and Supply-Side Mechanisms are briefly discussed. Demand-side mechanisms are mostly studied in psychology, whereas supply-side mechanisms belong more to sociology.

Demand-Side Mechanisms

The demand side of social contacts focuses on individual preferences and needs. Homophily—the tendency to associate with similar others—is the most powerful explanation for the demand side. The principle of homophily has been studied abundantly and is empirically very well established as a condition for the question who becomes friend with whom. For an example in the classroom, see Shrum, et al. 1988. See Leszczensky and Pink 2015 for a recent confirmation of ethnic segregation among friends. These authors also include contextual determinants and find that within a classroom ethnically determined friendship choice matters more than between classes. Homans 1984 asserts that the explanatory mechanism is the idea that interactions with similar others are rewarding. Homophily is directed to the choices of individuals on the micro level. Due to the role homophily plays in the association among persons, groups and networks are rather homogeneous on an aggregated level. Theoretically, the homophily principle focuses on the demand side for social contacts. Another demand-side mechanism is the notion that people prefer balance in their cognitions and contacts. The balance theory of Heider 1946 argues that a friendship between two actors depends on their relationship with a third one. If two actors have a positive relation to a third party, they will also start a positive relationship with each other. The theory assumes that imbalance in relationships produces a cognitive strain or tension, which can be reduced only by changing or breaking off relationships. Importantly, balance theory takes existing friendships into account when it comes to the decision to create a new one. Likewise, Mollenhorst, et al. 2008 employs social capital theory to show the “path dependency of friendship choice,” meaning that the choice of friends in a certain social setting matters for succeeding choices. Existing friendships in a given setting enhance the chance for new friends in the same one. This finding confirms the implication of a demand-side perspective, because friendship ties emerge because they are “available.” Like balance theory, social capital theory refers to the demand side of the explanation for the emergence of friendship but emphasizes in addition that friendships have an instrumental value (instantly or in the future). Flap and Volker 2013 shows people become friends if they face a common future, if they are in one or another way dependent on each other, or if they have invested in the relationship formerly. The maintenance of friendships has been shown to depend on repeated activities and investment. It has also been stressed that social capital embedded in friendship relationships has a discount rate: it vanishes if not renewed. Importantly, friendship relations are usually not disrupted through quarrels but decay slowly and slightly. They come, however, under pressure when one of the friends becomes involved in a romantic relationship; Slater 1963 argues this outcome is a result of the dyadic withdrawal hypothesis. Also, Hallinan 1979 shows that non-reciprocated friendships turn out to be instable.

  • Flap, H., and B. Volker. 2013. Social capital. In Handbook of rational choice social research. Edited by R. Wittek, V. Nee, and T. Snijders, 220–251. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.

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    Discusses social capital theory as a theory on the demand of social relationships. Starting a relation with another person can be explained by social capital prospects.

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  • Hallinan, M. T. 1979. The process of friendship formation. Social Networks 1.2: 193–210.

    DOI: 10.1016/0378-8733(78)90019-9Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper studies the stability and changes in friendship dyads.

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  • Heider, F. 1946. Attitudes and cognitive organization. Journal of Psychology 21:107–112.

    DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1946.9917275Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Explains balance theory, a theory on attitudes that can cause cognitive strain and that is often also applied to social relationships.

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  • Homans, G. C. 1984. The human group. New York: Harcourt.

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    This book is a seminal reference for the study of relationships in sociology. It was first published in 1950 and establishes that interactions with similar others are mutually rewarding.

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  • Leszczensky, L., and S. Pink. 2015. Ethnic segregation of friendship networks in school: Testing a rational-choice argument of differences in ethnic homophily between classroom- and grade-level networks. Social Networks 42:18–26.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2015.02.002Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Establishes and tests the argument that ethnic homophily plays a greater role between school classes than within.

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  • Mollenhorst, G., B. Volker, and H. Flap. 2008. Social contexts and cores discussion networks: Using a choice constraint approach to study similarity in intimate relationships. Social Forces 86:937–965.

    DOI: 10.1353/sof.0.0010Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Study the degree to which similarity in relationships is also related to meeting contexts where these contacts were established.

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  • Shrum, W., N. H. Cheek Jr., and S. M. Hunter. 1988. Friendship in school: Gender and racial homophily. Sociology of Education 61:227–239.

    DOI: 10.2307/2112441Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses the degree to which friendship networks of school mates are influenced by preferences for same sex and ethnicity.

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  • Slater, P. E. 1963. On social regression. American Sociological Review 28.3: 339–364.

    DOI: 10.2307/2090346Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Slater discusses amongst others dyadic withdrawal in friendship relationships as a consequence of a starting romantic relationship.

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Supply-Side Mechanisms

The explanatory mechanism of the supply side as an explanation for emergence and maintenance of friendships argues that individual action and behavior is influenced by structural opportunities. With regard to the supply of social contacts; important arguments have been formulated by Blau 1977 and Feld 1981. This perspective abandons a pure micro-level exchange view and emphasizes the importance of macro structures instead. Patterns of homophily are dependent on relative group size in the population. If different individual attributes are not closely correlated, intergroup associations can result despite the individual preference for in-group associations. Related to the argument of Blau 1977, of the importance of numerical distribution is the argument of geographical proximity. Proximity reduces costs of interaction and facilitates the emergence of mutual trust. Feld’s focus theory generalizes from numbers and places and assumes that individuals who share foci of activity have higher chances for meeting and therefore greater chances for becoming friends. Huckfeld 1983 shows that preferences can be overridden by social structure. Marsden 1990 extends these arguments and shows that different substructures promote diversity through their composition. Further, Volker, et al. 2009 shows that social contexts also influence the resulting strength of the friendship. The social contexts in which people meet each other for the first time are associated with the resulting strength of a relationship: in a more organized setting, weaker ties are formed. The choice-constraint approach emphasizes that relationships are the result of individual choices made under social constraints. Fischer, et al. 1977 uses insights from both demand and supply perspectives in the explanation of the emergence of friendship. People choose to construct and maintain social exchanges with some of those whom they meet, and they make this choice on the basis of weighing rewards and costs. In line with this perspective, Mollenhorst, et al. 2014 shows that friendship relations decay if meeting opportunities change (e.g., through moving due to change in work).

  • Blau, P. 1977. A macro sociological theory of social structure. American Journal of Sociology 83.1: 26–54.

    DOI: 10.1086/226505Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article is the elaboration of macro-structural theory and finds that macro structure fundamentally matters for relational choices.

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  • Feld, S. L. 1981. The focused organization of social ties. American Journal of Sociology 86:1015–1035.

    DOI: 10.1086/227352Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Establishes the theory of “foci” that influence and structure daily life and activities. Relations are established in these foci.

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  • Fischer, C. S., R. M. Jackson, C. A. Stueve, K. Gerson, L. McCallister Jones, and M. Baldassare, eds. 1977. Networks and places: Social relations in the urban setting. New York: Free Press.

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    Develops the choice-constraint approach, a position between the supply and demand sides of social contacts. People realize their choices within contextual constraints.

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  • Huckfeld, R. R. 1983. Social contexts, social networks, and urban neighborhoods: Environmental constraints on friendship choice. American Journal of Sociology 89.3: 651–669.

    DOI: 10.1086/227908Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Shows that the supply of people with a certain characteristic matters, even if preferences for similarity are accounted for.

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  • Marsden, P. 1990. Network diversity, substructures and opportunities for contacts. In Structures of power and constraints. Edited by C. Calhoun, M. W. Meyer, and W. R. Scott, 397–410. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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    Shows that some network structures are a “mixer” of social characteristics and others are not. For example, family is usually similar in terms of ethnicity, race, and religion but differs in terms of age, gender, and education.

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  • Mollenhorst, G., B. Volker, and H. Flap. 2014. Turnover in personal networks: How social contexts affect the emergence and discontinuation of relationships. Social Networks 37:65–80.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2013.12.003Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Shows that relations to friends can come to an end if people do not meet in a certain context anymore. Friendships end only rarely because of a troublesome relationship or a quarrel.

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  • Volker, B., H. Flap, and G. Mollenhorst. 2009. Where friends are found: Friendship patterns in different social settings. In Contexts of social capital: Social capital in community, markets and organizations. Edited by R. M. Hsung, N. Lin, and R. Breiger, 28–48. London: Routledge.

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    Argues that initial meeting places matter for the resulting relationship: friends are likely met in educational contexts, but marriage partners met more often in going out opportunities.

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Friendship between Social Groups

Much of the research on friendship in different social groups shows that friendship choices are driven by homophily. Characteristics such as age; ethnicity, as studied by Esser 1989; religion as studied by Cohen 1977; and education/occupation, as studied by Chan and Goldthorpe 2004, are remarkably similar among friends. Friendships are also similar with regards to sex. Cross-sex friendships are statistically a rare phenomenon as is shown by Kalmijn 2002 and Booth and Hess 1974. Little research has been done on the question of whether similarity in one social dimension is associated with similarity in another. An exception is Jackson 1977, who shows that friends who work in the same economic sector have a higher chance of being similar in education, age, and ethnicity. In this regard, Kalmijn and Vermunt 2007 is also of importance. These authors show that association between individuals who are similar in one dimension can, in part, be explained by similarity of other, sometimes latent, dimensions.

  • Booth, A., and E. Hess. 1974. Cross-sex friendship. Journal of Marriage and the Family 36:38–46.

    DOI: 10.2307/350992Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Shows that men and women are less likely to become friends than women with women and men with men.

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  • Chan, T. W., and J. H. Goldthorpe. 2004. Is there a status order in contemporary British society? European Journal of Sociology 20.5: 383–401.

    DOI: 10.1093/esr/jch033Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses social economic segregation in friendship networks.

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  • Cohen, S. M. 1977. Socioeconomic determinants of intraethnic marriage and friendship. Social Forces 55.4: 997–1010.

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    Studies the relationship between ethnic assimilation and social class in friendship and marriage ties.

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  • Esser, H. 1989. The integration of the second generation: Toward an explanation of cultural differences. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 18.6: 426–443.

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    Shows how networks of different ethnicities change through time.

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  • Jackson, R. M. 1977. Social structure and process in friendship choice. In Networks and places: Social relations in the urban setting. Edited by C. S. Fischer, R. M. Jackson, C. A. Stueve, K. Gerson, L. McCallister Jones, and M. Baldassare, 59–78. New York: Free Press.

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    Shows how similarity in friendship networks differs across social categories.

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  • Kalmijn, M. 2002. Sex segregation of friendship networks: Individual and structural determinants of having cross-sex friends. European Sociological Review 18:101–118.

    DOI: 10.1093/esr/18.1.101Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Explores and analyzes the conditions under which men and women become friends.

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  • Kalmijn, M., and J. K. Vermunt. 2007. Homogeneity of social networks by age and marital status: A multilevel analysis of ego-centered networks. Social Networks 29:25–43.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2005.11.008Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Studies whether homogeneity in personal relationships with regard to a certain characteristic is actually a byproduct of selection on the basis of another characteristic.

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Friendships within Social Groups and within Social Settings

Next to the studies of “birds of one feather,”—that is, research that addresses the degree of homophily—another line of research studies typical patterns of friendship within various social groups, such as work or neighborhood, and compares rural with urban friendship patterns. This research focuses not so much on the question of social closure or openness but attempts to find special patterns among friends. For example, Newcomb and Bagwell 1995 focuses on children; Bliesner and Adams 1992, on adults; and Adams, et al. 2000, on the elderly; Booth and Hess 1974 (cited under Friendship between Social Groups), on men versus women; Moody 2001, on relationships within the classroom; Lincoln and Mill 1979, on work relationships; Gouldner and Strong 1987, on middle-class women; and Kadushin 1995, on elite groups in which patterns of patronage are at stake. Furthermore, the question of whether local proximity stimulates friendships is still under study, especially as geographical boundaries have lost significance; see Athanasiou and Yoshioka 1973 for a seminal study on how spatial characteristics influence friendship choice.

Friendship over the Life Course

Given that the importance of friendship is without any doubt, the question how friendships change through life and how dynamic friendship networks are is a salient one. Research into friendships and life course is newer than on friendship in general, although, as Aboud and Mendelson 1996, shows, within developmental psychology the research question is not new. Still, the number of appropriate data sets is limited. Comparing people of different ages and in different stages of life, Fischer and Oliker 1983 find that friendship patterns among men and women differ throughout the life course due to the differences in their social roles. For example, when becoming a mother, women are in particular constrained in their possibilities of friendship formation, but this rapidly changes when children grow older. While women’s friendship networks shrink during early marriage and grow again in later life, men’s network size declines when they become older. Kalmijn 2003 studies friendship during life courses and compares a variety of life stages such as single persons, persons who are dating, married persons, and persons with and without children. Friendship networks become smaller over the life course, in particular when persons start dating (see also Demand-Side Mechanisms) as starting a romantic relationship changes demands for friendship. Through time, couples share more of their friends. In addition, age effects seem to dominate life course effects. Kalmijn 2012 focuses on the change of social contacts to, among others, friends across the life course, while studying within-person changes during a twelve-year period. Again, Kalmijn shows that friends become less important when people get married. In addition, while parenthood also affects friendship ties negatively, this decline seems to be compensated by enhanced contacts with neighbors. Likewise, Pahl and Pevalin 2005 studies how life events explain changes in friendship over time and shows that friendships change with increasing age but shifts more to kin nominations. They show that the proportion of kin among the friendship nomination considerably increases. With regard to more short-term development in friendships Hays 1985 shows in one of the first longitudinal studies containing three small waves of interviews that dyadic behavior patterns and attitude ratings can predict the emergence of close friendships three months later.

  • Aboud, F. E., and M. J. Mendelson. 1996. Determinants of friendship selection and quality: Developmental perspectives. In The company they keep: Friendship in childhood and adolescence. Edited by W. M. Bukowski, A. F. Newcomb, and W. W. Hartup, 87–114. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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    This chapter discusses the issues around friendship selection and its explanation in a developmental perspective.

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  • Fischer, C. S., and S. J. Oliker. 1983. Research note on friendship, gender, and the life cycle. Social Forces 62:124–133.

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    This paper provides arguments on how gender and life cycle influence friendship patterns.

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  • Hays, R. B. 1985. A longitudinal study of friendship development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48.4: 909–924.

    DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.48.4.909Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Shows in a longitudinal study among college freshmen how friendship patterns evolve and how attitudes in friendship dyads become synchronized with each other.

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  • Kalmijn, M. 2003. Shared friendship networks and the life course: An analysis of survey data on married and cohabiting couples. Social Networks 25:231–249.

    DOI: 10.1016/S0378-8733(03)00010-8Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article inquires to what degree married and cohabitating couples differ in the friendships they share.

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  • Kalmijn, M. 2012. Longitudinal analyses of the effects of age, marriage, and parenthood on social contacts and support. Advances in Life Course Research 17.4: 177–190.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.alcr.2012.08.002Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article studies how social contacts change through the life course in general. It provides a benchmark for the discussion of particular relationships such as friendship.

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  • Pahl, R., and D. J. Pevalin. 2005. Between family and friends: A longitudinal study of friendship choice. British Journal of Sociology 56.3: 433–450.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2005.00076.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Describes changes in friendship choices over time and shows how these choices are impacted by life events.

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Consequences of Friendship

Beside studies that address the changes of friendship during people’s life and due to certain life events, there is also a vast body of literature studying friendship patterns for particular age groups, in particular for the younger ages. The focus of this literature is on the consequences of having friends. Because of the assumption that friends influence each other’s behavior in both socially desired and undesirable directions and because adolescents are thought to be most receptive to influences from peers, much attention has been paid to friendship patterns of adolescents. The “wrong friends” are thought to cause deviant behavior and malfunctioning in general; see, for example, Claes 1992. Haynie 2002 examines Sutherlands’s theory about differential association and the question of whether there are thresholds in a network of friends beyond which influence increases. Likewise, Helfinstein, et al. 2015 and Mercken, et al. 2015 inquire into the criminal influence friends can exercise on each other. Other studies, such as Demir 2015 and Padilla-Walker and Fraser 2015 or, earlier, Keefe and Berndt 1996 and Ladd, et al. 1996, look into more desirable consequences such as happiness, self-esteem, and school adjustment. Although studying not adolescents in particular but friendships in general, Shah and Jehn 1993 find that groups of friends in general perform better in decision tasks than groups of acquaintances. However, Flache and Yamamoto 2006 argue that friends can actually perform worse than groups of weaker ties, because strong ties of friends appreciate the relationships with each other more than the organizational goals. Finally, there are a number of studies that investigate the effects friends on physical health. Blieszner 2014 provides an overview on that literature, showing that the effects friends on physical and mental well-being is larger than those of family.

  • Blieszner, R. 2014. The worth of friendship: Can friends keep us happy and healthy? Generations 38.1: 24–30.

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    This article examines the consequences that friendship can have on physical and mental health in older ages.

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  • Claes, M. E. 1992. Friendship and personal adjustment during adolescence. Journal of Adolescence 15.1: 39–55.

    DOI: 10.1016/0140-1971(92)90064-CSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Shows how important adolescent friendship is for social adjustment.

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  • Demir, M., ed. 2015. Friendship and happiness: Across the life-span and cultures. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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    The book brings together studies on the relationship between friendship and happiness in different countries and continents. Next to this, it reviews literature on friendship patterns during the life course, e.g., children, adolescents, young and middle aged adults as well as the elderly.

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  • Flache, A., and H. Yamamoto. 2006. The rational weakness of strong ties: Failure of group solidarity in a highly cohesive group of rational agents. Sociological Theory and Methods 21.1: 131–156.

    DOI: 10.1080/00222500212988Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper shows that, in the context of work or wherever performance is an issue, friendships can be contra productive to performance because people place the value of friendship above the necessity to commit to the norms of the organization.

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  • Haynie, D. L. 2002. Friendship networks and delinquency: The relative nature of peer delinquency. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 18.2: 99–134.

    DOI: 10.1023/A:1015227414929Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper discusses how peer delinquency is related to peer and friendship networks.

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  • Helfinstein, S. M., J. A. Mumford, and R. A. Poldrack. 2015. If all your friends jumped off a bridge: The effect of others’ actions on engagement in and recommendation of risky behaviors. Journal of Experimental Psychology 144.1: 12–17.

    DOI: 10.1037/xge0000043Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper shows how risk behavior can be a network effect.

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  • Keefe, K., and T. J. Berndt. 1996. Relations of friendship quality to self-esteem in early adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence 5:319–338.

    DOI: 10.1177/0272431696016001007Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This research discusses the role of friends for self-esteem, particularly in early adolescence.

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  • Ladd, G. W., B. J. Kochenderfer, and C. C. Coleman. 1996. Friendship quality as a predictor of young children’s early school adjustment. Child Development 67.3: 1103–1111.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01785.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article studies whether friendships and their quality predict adjustment in younger ages.

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  • Mercken, L., C. Steglich, R. Knibbe, and H. de Vries. 2015. Dynamics of friendship networks and alcohol use in early and mid-adolescence. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 73.1: 99–110.

    DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2012.73.99Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article uses Siena models to study the dynamics of friendship networks in terms of network change and alcohol use.

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  • Padilla-Walker, L. M., and A. M. Fraser. 2015. Associations between friendship, sympathy, and prosocial behavior toward friends. Journal of Research on Adolescence 25.1: 28–35.

    DOI: 10.1111/jora.12108Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This paper shows how friendship influences prosocial behavior; young people who have friends behave more prosocial in some respects.

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  • Shah, P. P., and K. A. Jehn. 1993. Do friends perform better than acquaintances? The interaction of friendship, conflict, and task. Group Decision and Negotiation 2:149–165.

    DOI: 10.1007/BF01884769Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article studies whether stronger or weaker ties are productive in work settings.

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Social Media and Consequences for Friendship

A relatively new research question is whether social media and the new possibilities to start and maintain contact influence friendship relationships. Already Fischer 1992 argues that during the introduction of the telephone into individual households people from all social strands feared unnecessarily that relational quality would decline and that, similarly, the Internet and use of social media have no detrimental effect on the quality of friendship relationships. On the contrary, Franzen 2000 shows that emailing is positively associated with the number of friends. Earlier, Kraut, et al. 1998 shows that Internet use was related to a decline in contacts. However, when the authors repeated their study in 2002, they no longer found any negative effects. Since that time many studies on the effects of Internet use on friendship have been conducted. In a recent meta-analysis, Song, et al. 2014 shows that there is an association between feelings of isolation and Facebook use; however, the direction is different from what has been assumed. People who lack friends use the Internet more; hence, friendships do not decline because of Internet use. Ellison, et al. 2007 show that the use of Facebook enhances so-called bridging social capital, which is social capital embedded in ties to different others. In another type of studies, Peter, et al. 2005 studies explicitly the formation of online friendships and shows that personality characteristics such as extraversion matter for the likelihood of forming friendships. This mechanism is probably the same as in the offline world. The authors also state that the complexity of online relationships should not be underestimated.

  • Ellison, N. B., C. Steinfield, and C. Lampe. 2007. The benefits of Facebook “friends”: Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12:1143–1168.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Studies to what degree online relationships actually are a resource.

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  • Fischer, C. 1992. America calling. A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

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    This book puts the question of whether the Internet deteriorates our social relationships into perspective. Fischer discusses the social history of the introduction of telephones in American households. The alleged threat by telephones is very similar to the current one by Internet and email.

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  • Franzen, A. 2000. Does the Internet make us lonely? European Sociological Review 16.4: 427–438.

    DOI: 10.1093/esr/16.4.427Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article reports on a large-scale study on the question of whether Internet users have less friends than those who are not active on the Internet.

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  • Kraut, R., S. Kiesler, B. Boneva, J. Cummings, V. Helgeson, and V. Crawford. 2002. The Internet paradox revisited. Journal of Social Issues 58.1: 49–74.

    DOI: 10.1111/1540-4560.00248Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article is an extension Kraut, et al. 1998. The same people are interviewed again to determine whether effects of receiving free Internet were lasting.

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  • Kraut, R., M. Patterson, V. Lundmark, S. Kiesler, T. Mukopadhyay, and W. Scherlis. 1998. The Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist 53.9: 1017–1031.

    DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.53.9.1017Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article reports on a field experiment in which people received free Internet and what it meant for their mental health and relationships.

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  • Peter, J., P. Valkenburg, and A. P. Schouten. 2005. Developing a model of adolescent friendship formation on the Internet. Cyberpsychological Behavior 8.5: 423–430.

    DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2005.8.423Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This study examines the process of online friendship formation and develops a general model about this process.

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  • Song, H., A. Zmyslinski-Seelig, J. Kim, A. Drent, K. Omori, and M. Allen. 2014. Does Facebook make us lonely? A meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior 36:446–452.

    DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.011Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article uniquely brings together studies in the impact of Internet and the quality of friendships and examines the direction of the association.

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Trends in Friendship Relations

The question of whether patterns of friendships have changed due to modernization and individualization has inspired many researchers. However, high-quality data are scarce. Fischer 2011 uses a compilation of different sources to study changes in friendships, acquaintances, and family. With regard to friendship, not many changes have been reported for the period between 1970 and 2000. Wang and Wellman 2010 does not find a decline (or an increase) in the number of friends people have. Marsden and Srivastava 2012 analyzes data from the General Social Survey for the period 1974–2008. While they find no decline in friendships, they suggest that networks have been “reconfigured” through time. In particular, the tendencies to socialize with neighbors and with friends have grown independent from each other, which may indicate that associates are more voluntarily chosen and immediate availability has become less important.

  • Fischer, C. S. 2011. Still connected: Family and Friends in America since 1970. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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    This book brings together research in changes in friendship and family relationships during the first decade of the 2000s.

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  • Marsden, P. V., and S. B. Srivastava. 2012. Trends in informal social participation 1974–2008. In Social trends in American life. Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972. Edited by P. Marsden, 240–266. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.

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    This chapter uses the General Social Survey data between 1974 and 2008 to study changes in many types of social participation.

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  • Wang, H., and B. Wellman. 2010. Social connectivity in America: Changes in adult friendship network size from 2002 to 2007. American Behavioral Scientist 53.8: 1148–1169.

    DOI: 10.1177/0002764209356247Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The authors study the question of whether the number of friends is associated with the use of the Internet. Using two US national surveys, they find that friendships in general grew in number between 2002 and 2007. Internet users follow this trend, and heavy Internet users mentioned the most friendships, both online and offline.

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