{"id":289,"date":"2023-03-20T23:30:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T03:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/?p=289"},"modified":"2023-03-20T23:34:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T03:34:19","slug":"friendship-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/2023\/03\/20\/friendship-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendship 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever wondered what\u2019s the secret to a good friendship? While many people think romantic relationships are the hardest relationships to attain and maintain, there are many facets that go into having healthy friendships. Because of this, people may often overlook the possibility and reality of how effortful friendship-building can be. In this blog post, we will discuss the important components of building and maintaining friendships while providing evidence-based relationship-building practices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gena: Communication: the key to building successful friendships.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

While proximity and frequent communication are valuable in shifting relationships from acquaintances to friendships, maintaining and developing friendship bonds require effortful communication. Communication is imperative to the success of all relationships, but within friendships, the type of communication shared may differ. According to research by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, as friendships develop, individuals shift from discussing fewer and more shallow topics to discussing deeper and more thought-provoking concepts (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Whereas acquaintances may focus on discussing the weather outside or their plans for the weekend, close friends may discuss more sensitive topics or seek advice on navigating stressful life experiences. Naturally, as one person shares more, the other does, and self-disclosure increases the chance that someone else will share about themselves (Sprecher et al., 2013). You may have experienced this effect when talking with a friend. As they shared a specific and potentially vulnerable story, you may have felt inclined to also share more about yourself. Hearing disclosure increases familiarity with an individual (Sprecher et al., 2013), and this cycle of effortful communication between two individuals provides the foundation for building trust and mutual support (Nicolaisen & Thorson, 2017), which are essential factors in sustaining a friendship. When thinking about best practices in building and maintaining relationships, it is crucial to create space for authentic conversation that also prioritizes active and enthusiastic listening (Reis et al., 2010). According to past research, enthusiastic listening is more beneficial than neutral listening since enthusiastic responses convey validation which plays a positive role in supporting friendship (Reis et al., 2010). Within friendship conversations, it is imperative to focus on listening to understand rather than to respond. Practices such as using affirming language, repeating for clarification instead of assuming, and asking how to help before offering unsolicited advice are great practices in shifting towards more enthusiastic listening (Reis et al., 2010).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Callie: How can long-distance friendships be successful?<\/b><\/p>\n

One threat to our existing friendships is a lack of in-person contact. Many people do not live close to their friends for the entirety of their friendships. Friends are made at different stages in life, and the physical distance between individuals may increase as we change jobs or schools, enter retirement, move, etc. An increase in distance between two friends makes it harder for friends to see each other in person. Because of this, it is important to understand the best ways to communicate with someone so that a close relationship can be maintained. Oswald & Clark (2003) found that the frequency of communication is important when maintaining friendships where in-person communication is rare. When looking at high school best friends who transitioned to separate colleges, the study found that the most successful friendships were the ones who communicated frequently, as this increased the satisfaction and commitment of the relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Technology has provided modern friendships with a unique ability to communicate regardless of distance, and certain forms of communication are more effective than others. Shklovski et al. (2008) found that phone calls are the preferable way to communicate with someone when compared to emails. This is because the study found that phone calls both maintain and foster growth within a friendship when face-to-face contact is limited due to distance. Furthermore, increases in emailing were not found to help maintain or grow friendships, but decreases in emailing were found to negatively affect friendships. This may be because communication through email shows investment in the relationship, but does not provide the same personal connection (like a phone call does) that fosters relationship growth between two people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While being in a long-distance friendship may limit the frequency of in-person interaction, these types of friendships are often just as satisfying as close-distance friendships (Johnson, 2001). Johnson (2001) found that certain maintenance behaviors in long-distance friendships allow individuals to remain close. For example, openness and assurance were both behaviors that were found to foster closeness in friendships, and, because of technology, this can be achieved regardless of the amount of in-person interactions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When looking at the factors that go into successful long-distance friendships, it is clear that the quality and frequency of interactions allow for satisfaction in the relationship. Even though we may not see our long-distance friends in person as often as we\u2019d like, we can still maintain a close relationship with them by engaging in frequent and meaningful communication.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrea: Friendship Evolution or Dissolution?<\/b><\/p>\n

Have you ever thought about why some of your friendships have stayed strong for years, and others didn\u2019t last?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It turns out that there were likely either some unreciprocated or reciprocated actions that determined the outcome. In a study by Oswald et al. (2004), dyadic relationships, or friendships between two people, were assessed based on their closeness level (either best, close, or casual) and determinants of the maintenance between said closeness level. It was found that the reciprocal effort to maintain the friendship was a predictor of what level of closeness the friendship reached. However, if this effort was not reciprocated, there was instability in the friendship that was either resolved by one member of the dyad decreasing or increasing their maintenance effort to match the other member or the deterioration of the dyadic friendship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More often than not, though, if there is an unreciprocated effort by one side of the dyad, then we see that one side is benefitting from the friendship more than the other, and it will dissolve. Additionally, we see that this is a behavior that likely develops very early, as it is seen in young children. In a study by Hallinan (1978), it was found that children in an elementary school stopped interacting with a potential friend if there was no reciprocated interest in a proposed friendship offer or no reciprocated effort to preserve the friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having said this, these findings may not definitively be indicators of your friendships stability and quality, but these trends may be able to explain variations in your past and current friendships, and moving forward, you can even use them as methods to upkeep relationships with people that you want to stay close friends with. In order to do so, one may ask what are maintenance strategies one can employ? In the study by Oswald et al., 2004, the most effective strategies were found to be positivity, supportiveness, and openness. Funnily enough, we see that these strategies are also found to be important maintenance predictors in romantic relationships. Thus, a positive externality of implementing these maintenance strategies in your friendships is that it could help with your romantic relationships as well!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

Altman, I., & Taylor, D. A. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal\u00a0relationships. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.<\/p>\n

Hallinan. (1978). The process of friendship formation. Social Networks, 1(2), 193\u2013210.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/0378-8733(78)90019-9<\/p>\n

Johnson, A. J. (2001). Examining the maintenance of friendships: Are there differences between\u00a0geographically close and long distance friends?. Communication Quarterly, 49(4),\u00a0424-435.<\/p>\n

Nicholaisen, M., & Thorsen, K. (2017). What are friends for? Friendships and loneliness over the\u00a0lifespan\u2013From 18 to 79 years. The International Journal of Aging and Human\u00a0Development, 84, 126-158<\/p>\n

Oswald, D. L., & Clark, E. M. (2003). Best friends forever?: High school best friendships and\u00a0the transition to college. Personal relationships, 10(2), 187-196.<\/p>\n

Oswald, D. L., Clark, E. M., & Kelly, C. M. (2004). Friendship maintenance: An analysis of\u00a0individual and dyad behaviors. Journal of Social and clinical psychology, 23(3), 413-441.<\/p>\n

Reis, H.T., Smith, S.M., Carmichael, C.L., Caprariello, P.A., Tsai, F., Rodrigues, A., & Maniaci,\u00a0M.R. (2010). Are you happy for me? How sharing positive events with others provides\u00a0personal and interpersonal benefits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99,\u00a0311-329.<\/p>\n

Shklovski, I., Kraut, R., & Cummings, J. (2008, April). Keeping in touch by technology:\u00a0Maintaining friendships after a residential move. In Proceedings of the sigchi conference\u00a0on human factors in computing systems (pp. 807-816).<\/p>\n

Sprecher, S., Treger, S., & Wondra, J. D. (2013). Effects of self-disclosure role on liking,\u00a0closeness, and other impressions in get-acquainted interactions. Journal of Social and\u00a0Personal Relationships, 30(4), 497\u2013514.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever wondered what\u2019s the secret to a good friendship? While many people think romantic relationships are the hardest relationships to attain and maintain, there are many facets that go into having healthy friendships. Because of this, people may often overlook the possibility and reality of how effortful friendship-building can be. In this blog post, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11777,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11777"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}