Communication and Cross-Sex Friendships Across the Life Cycle: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature on cross-sex friendships and communication across the life cycle. It begins by establishing the importance and historical relevance of cross-sex friendships and the relative neglect of these relationships by the scholarly community. It then offers a delineation of conceptual and methodological issues involved in the study of male-female friendships. Next, with a focus on communication, studies are reviewed on cross-sex friendships in early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, young and middle adulthood, and old age. Finally, the author makes some summarizing observations concerning the lack of theory in cross-sex friendship studies, the adoption of a “heterosexist” worldview in cross-sex friendship investigations, and the relative neglect of communication topics pertinent to those friendships. The central observation in the chapter is that cross-sex friendships have a protean quality that makes them significantly different in each stage of the life cycle, and that those differences are manifested in communication.