Adult Friends Research Articles

The Use of Relational Maintenance Behaviors in Sustained Adult Friendships

The purpose of this study was to investigate the enactment of relational maintenance behaviors across three types of adult friendship. Participants (N = 139) completed an online questionnaire in which they were randomly assigned to an active, dormant, or commemorative friendship condition. After reading a description of the friendship type, participants identified one friend who met this description and indicated their use of relational maintenance behaviors with this friend. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance treating age as a covariate indicated that individuals reporting on an active friendship used the understanding, self-disclosure, assurances, and tasks relational maintenance behaviors at a higher rate than individuals reporting on a commemorative friendship.

Anxious and Avoidant Attachment to God Predict Moral Foundations beyond Adult Attachment

Van IJzendoorn and Zwart-Woudstra (1995) and Shaver and Mikulincer (2012) have proposed that adult attachment patterns are related to moral decision-making. We explore the relationship between attachment to God (ATG) and the 5 moral foundations proposed by Haidt and Graham (2007)—care/harm, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Data from 306 adult subjects, who completed measures of adult attachment, ATG, and the 5 moral foundations, were collected online. Results revealed that attachment to God accounted for significant levels of variability in all 5 foundations above and beyond the variability accounted for by adult romantic and best friend attachment. ATG avoidance was negatively related to the care, fairness, authority, and purity foundations, while ATG anxiety was positively related to the in-group loyalty and authority foundations. Our results suggest that those with insecure attachment patterns—in this case regarding God as an attachment figure—have different moral foundation profiles.

Faculty Role: A Choice of Styles.

Most faculty receive copious amounts of information about the various generations and their characteristics - the Millennials, the Gen-Xers, etc. - and strategies to engage them. Although meeting the needs of learners and tailoring our strategies to be optimally effective with each group have merit, it is important to consider the roles we choose. It is inappropriate to assume that, as faculty, we will simply mold ourselves to the needs of various students. Rather, we need to consider our role and the interactions that best fit the situation.Potentially more significant than generation definitions is the fact that our speedy technology brings new demands, challenges, and opportunities for the faculty role. With vast social media networks and direct email contact, it is easy to understand how students fall into interactions where they treat faculty like their best buddies. I still gasp when I receive an email addressed, Hi Dean, as if dean were my first name and not my title. We select the role style, not the students.In the mid-1900s, universities and colleges often emphasized their roles as in loco parentis, in the place of parents. Here the action is to guide and direct the next phase of a learner's development. As a community, we continue teaching learners about making good choices. The university's code of conduct sets standards and assigns consequences for unacceptable behaviors such as cheating and binge drinking. Taking the parental role to guide is part of what faculty do, as we construct curricula and courses to build the intellect. We use a parental approach often to nurture the formation of young professionals, particularly in strengthening their caring hearts as respect for all persons. We shape concepts of professional conduct as personal integrity and responsibility in the professional life. In loco parentis is part of faculty life.Faculty sage (whetheron the stage or off)is another rolechoice. In this mode, faculty knowledge is revered, and faculty members are approached with deference. In many ways, the sage guides all interactions, because ultimately the sage knows the best choice. In nursing, those who bring true practice situations into dialogues often are the most revered, because they demonstrate real-world knowledge and answers. There are distinct advantages to this role, when well executed, in that learners are captivated by the scenarios and may grasp important concepts that would have escaped them without the real-world illustration.Leamnson (1999) speaks of another role, the adult friend, someone who approves of [students] as learners and persons (p. …

Analysis of the Long-Distance and Overnight Travel Tour Planning Process

For many households, long-distance and overnight travel (LDOT) requires considerably more planning and financial investment than everyday travel activities do. As LDOT occupies a larger portion of Americans’ total travel than it did in the past, it is necessary to better understand how planning for LDOT tours contributes to activity-based travel modeling. Existing studies suggest that factors associated with households, persons, and the tours themselves affect the complexity of planning for LDOT, but few studies have ever used data from a data set on the temporal process of planning for a tour over a long period of time. This study used data from a unique survey, the Longitudinal Survey of Overnight Travel, which collected information on planned and completed tours from 1,220 respondents over 1 year. This paper presents descriptive statistics and three statistical models that identify the factors that contribute to the complexity of LDOT tour planning, including the number of legs or stops on the tour, the maximum distance from home, the presence of adult friends or children on the tour, tour duration, and whether a personal vehicle was available on the tour. Other findings highlight the need for improved data collection on LDOT tour making and tour planning, including further description of the external constraints that lead to the cancellation of tour plans.

Misery Loves Company: A Dyadic Approach to Examining the Effects of Depressive Symptoms on Friendship Discord

This study examined (1) whether individuals’ depressive symptoms are related to their own and their friends’ perceptions of friendship discord and (2) whether similarity or complementarity of two friends’ depressive symptoms are related to both individuals’ perceptions of friendship discord. Young adult same-sex friends (N = 209 pairs) completed self-report measures capturing their depressive symptoms and friendship discord. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) showed that individuals’ depressive symptoms were associated with higher self-perceptions of friendship discord. In contrast, individuals’ depressive symptoms were not significantly related to their friends’ perceptions of friendship discord. Interestingly, results showed that friendship discord (perceived by both friends) was higher when a more depressive individual was paired with a less depressive friend.

A is for activist by I. Nagar

Nagar, Innosanto. A is for activist. Mississauga, Ontario: Random House, 2013. Print.A publisher’s release indicates that Innosanto Nagar is the founder of “…The Design Action Collective, a worker-owned cooperative design studio in Oakland, California, that is dedicated to “serving the movement…” (Enclosure dated November 16, 2013). It is not the least bit surprising, then, that he would produce a book in the cause of activism; in fact, he would appear singularly qualified to do so. But that he should, in good conscience, produce this particular book is baffling.At times political propaganda, always a diatribe, A is for activism comes in the form of a board book for tiny hands, and in the guise of an ABC book. Who is Nagar’s intended audience? Or, more cynically, just whom is his publisher trying to kid?The underlying intent of English language alphabet books is to introduce preschoolers to phonics. Typically, words and illustrations are kept within the young child’s own experience level, real or vicarious. One is free to agree with the following sentiment; it is, however, absurd to suggest it as an appropriate mnemonic for fastening the sound of the letter “d” in the mind of a three-year-old: “Little d democracy More than voting, you’ll agree. Dictators Detest it. Donkeys Don’t get it. But you and me? We Demand equality!” It also strains credibility to think that the symbolism of the illustration accompanying this stanza, a donkey and an elephant butting heads, will be grasped by American infants. This mnemonic for “n,” I grant you, might appeal to a two-year-old; but his mother? Not so much. “N is for NO No! No! No! Yes, to what we want. No to what must go! No! No! No!” Finally, if you are seriously opposed to the expanding use of fossil fuels, join the adult conversation. Sell your car. Install some solar panels. Vote. Don’t waste time teaching your babies to chant, “Silly Selfish Scoundrels Sucking on dinosaur Sludge!”Some of Nagar’s ideas would be worth presenting to high school students—but not in board book format. For young children, there are excellent picture books about people who have championed human causes with courage and conviction; for example, Every Day is Malala Day by Rosemary McCarney. Don’t buy A is for activist for a little child. If you must have it, buy it as a gift for your adult friend who joins causes. With this last possibility in mind, I am awarding the book one out of four stars.Not Recommended: 1 out of 4 starsReviewer: Leslie AitkenLeslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship involved selection of children’s literature for school, public, special, and university collections. She is a former Curriculum Librarian at the University of Alberta.

Transition to Adulthood as a Peer Project

This study used an action theoretical framework and the action-project method to address the following research question: “How do youth jointly with peers construct, articulate, and act on goals and strategies pertinent to the transition to adulthood?” Fifteen young adult friendship dyads were studied over a 9-month period, using videotaped conversations and telephone monitoring. Peers jointly and intentionally engaged in actions and enacted goals related to young adult transition. Negotiating and maintaining friendship, constructing identity, and promoting career were the projects that emerged most frequently. These projects involved using a range of skills and resources that allowed the participants to take a number of functional steps in constructing and realizing their joint goals, including being intimate, humorous, and reciprocal with each other, providing support, sharing emotion, and exercising judgment. The findings illustrate how friendship, identity, and career promotion are jointly constructed and enacted by young adults.

The cascading development of autonomy and relatedness from adolescence to adulthood.

A developmental cascade model of autonomy and relatedness in the progression from parent to friend to romantic relationships across ages 13, 18, and 21 was examined among 184 adolescents (53% female, 58% Caucasian, 29% African American) recruited from a public middle school in Virginia. Parental psychological control at age 13 undermined the development of autonomy and relatedness, predicting relative decreases in autonomy and relatedness with friends between ages 13 and 18 and lower levels of autonomy and relatedness with partners at age 18. These cascade effects extended into adult friendships and romantic relationships, with autonomy and relatedness with romantic partners at age 18 being a strong predictor of autonomy and relatedness with both friends and partners at age 21.

Gratitude for Help among Adult Friends and Siblings

Although gratitude is a key prosocial emotion reinforcing reciprocal altruism, it has been largely ignored in the empirical literature. We examined feelings of gratitude and the importance of reciprocity in same-sex peer relations. Participants were 772 individuals (189 men; mean age = 28.80) who completed an online survey using a vignette design. We investigated (i) differences in reported gratitude and the importance of reciprocity among same-sex siblings and same-sex friends, and (ii) how relationship closeness moderates these associations. Based on the theory of kin altruism, we expect that people would feel more grateful towards friends than towards their siblings, and that lack of gratitude or failure to pay back a loan would bother more with friends than with siblings, irrespective of emotional closeness. Results showed that levels of gratitude and expectations of reciprocity were higher towards friends compared to siblings. This was the case also after controlling for emotional closeness. Being close generally made participants feel more grateful and expect lower displays of gratitude in the other. Closeness was also strongly associated with emotional gratitude among siblings compared to friends. We conclude that feelings and displays of gratitude have a special role in friendships. Although a close sibling may elicit as much gratitude as a friend does, even a very close friend is not exempt from the logic of reciprocity in the same way that a sibling is.

“So it’s like, do you like Jeff a lot or, I mean…”

Despite Erikson’s (1968) proposal that identity is a psychosocial task, most existing research in developmental psychology has conceptualized personal identity as an individual, “internalized” phenomenon. The present case study aimed to elucidate how emerging adult friends co-construct personal identities by multiply positioning themselves while dialoguing about their romantic and sexual desires. The participating friends were two White, heterosexual, 19-year-old women, college roommates. We combined microanalysis of positioning in their conversation with analysis of the friends’ individual interviews about their recorded conversation. This dual perspective provided a situated understanding of identity positioning on several planes—vis-à-vis the interactional partner (e.g., She needs support, I’m supporting), the romantic partner under discussion (e.g., I’m mature, he’s immature), and dating relationships generally (e.g., okay with casual relationships). Findings are discussed in relation to theories of personal identity development and the interlocutor’s role in negotiating the developmental tasks of identity and intimacy.

Close adult friendships, gender, and the life cycle

Drawing on 25,185 responses collected via an online news website, our findings extend and update Fischer and Oliker’s (1983) classic study on gender and life cycle differences in friendship. We found no substantial gender differences in number of friends people can count on to celebrate birthdays, discuss intimate matters like one’s sex life, or depend upon when experiencing trouble late at night ( ds = .04–.20); however, number of friendships varied substantially according to marital status, age, and parental status. Residential population size was not associated with number of friendships. We also found that virtually all respondents reported having at least one close friend. Satisfaction with friends was a better predictor of life satisfaction than was number of friends.

Certainly, kids can be authors!

Dear Readers,I had lunch the other day with a colleague who told me of her interest in doing research about an obscure and forgotten author from long ago who wrote and published a novel at the age of twelve. How fascinating, I thought, that this young girl was inspired and determined to submit her manuscript to a publisher in the 1920s, a time when few children could call themselves published authors.But what kind of support exists today for young scribblers? Perhaps not surprisingly, it all begins with you, whether you are a parent, aunt, uncle, teacher, librarian, or adult friend of a child, all of you can make a difference by encouraging children to read and write. You can also let children know about online resources devoted to helping young authors develop their writing and illustration skills. For example, I discovered Scribblitt.com, which is a terrific website where kids can use free online tools to write and illustrate their own stories; they also have the option of collaborating with other kids and writers using cloud-based technology. Furthermore, you can help children to develop their writing skills by proofreading their stories and offering them helpful advice about spelling, character development, narrative structure, and so on.Another way for children to get inspired about reading and writing is to check the websites of their favourite authors, which are generally chock-full of activities and information about children’s writers and illustrators. To wit, I had the great pleasure of recently meeting and interviewing Jill Bryant, a Canadian writer who specializes in children’s nonfiction, when she was visiting the University of Alberta and meeting with numerous groups of children, inspiring them to read and write. Her website, Jillbryant.ca, has some excellent teacher resources that encourage students in grades four to eight to write about their role models, using her books about real entrepreneurs, athletes, and designers for inspiration. When you begin looking at author websites and other online resources (e.g., directories, readers’ advisory services, webcasts, etc.) for information about writing children’s books, it becomes readily apparent that there is a plethora of writing support tools for budding young authors.Enjoy the summer issue, and please take note that we have also included a review in French of a French language book for children. We are delighted to announce that the Deakin Review will continue to review books in French as our resources permit.Happy reading!Robert DesmaraisManaging EditorClick here to watch the interview with Jill Bryant.

Uczenie się w sytuacji przyjaźni w perspektywie andragogicznej

The text is summation research results of Ph.D. Dissertation. The subject is adult friendship and adult learning in friendship. Author introduces a phenomenon – the relationship of friendship as an area of andragogical research and presents the results. It shows that friendship – a universal space of human life – coexists with the processes of learning, realized along with the „happening” of friendship

“No Time for Friendship”

What is the relation between parents’ views of their own friendships and their beliefs and practices about their children’s friendships? Do parents who enjoy high-quality adult friendships understand and support adolescent friendships in ways different from parents who do not have close adult friendships? Relying on systematic analysis of interview data, this article demonstrates discrepancies between six Shanghai mothers’ perceptions of their own friendships and their beliefs, attitudes, and concerns about their adolescent children’s friendships. The article also presents five themes underlying the mothers’ ideas about adolescent friendship: (a) no time for friendship, (b) good friends must have good grades, (c) it is important to make new friends, (d) ambiguous feelings and contradictory attitudes, and (e) weariness of peers and society. The findings are interpreted from three cultural and contextual perspectives: The Chinese tradition of emphasizing academic learning and proper behavior during adolescence, the collectivist philosophy and practice of using peer pressure to improve social behavior, and Chinese parents’ anxiety over their children’s gaining edges in intense academic and job competition.

Pathways of peer relationships from childhood to young adulthood

This study examined trajectories of peer social preference during childhood and personality assessed in early adolescence in relation to trajectories of friendship quality during early adulthood. Participants (N=585) were followed from ages 5 to age 23. At ages 5 to 8, peers provided sociometric nominations; at age 12 participants reported their own personality characteristics; from ages 19 to 23 participants rated their friendship quality. Latent growth modeling revealed that trajectories characterized by high levels of childhood peer social preference were related to trajectories characterized by high levels of early adulthood friendship quality. Early adolescent personality characterized by extraversion and conscientiousness predicted higher friendship quality at age 19, and conscientiousness predicted change in friendship quality from ages 19 to 23. This study demonstrates that peer relationships show continuity from childhood to early adulthood and that qualities of core personality are linked to the development of adult friendships.

The Adolescent Relational Dialectic and the Peer Roots of Adult Social Functioning

The long-term import of a fundamental challenge of adolescent social development-establishing oneself as a desirable peer companion while avoiding problematic behaviors often supported within peer groups-was examined in a community sample of 184 adolescents, followed from ages 13 to 23, along with parents, peers, and romantic partners. The dialectical nature of this challenge appeared in findings that autonomy vis-à-vis peer influences predicted both long-term success avoiding problematic behavior but also more difficulty establishing strong adult friendships. Conversely, being a desirable peer companion in adolescence predicted more positive adult relationships but also greater alcohol use. Adolescents who established themselves as both desirable companions and as autonomous vis-à-vis peers were rated as most successful by their parents at age 23.

“Friend Moments”: A Discursive Study of Friendship

The current study adopted an interactional perspective toward friendship and directly explored how pairs of self-identified friends practice friendship within a research conversation. Twelve pairs of young adult friends were interviewed together about their friendship, and the transcripts were analyzed using discourse analysis. During the interviews, participants performed their friendship in particular identifiable moments (i.e., friend moments) by addressing each other directly and drawing on locally shared resources (i.e., a shared personally relevant history, context, and resources), positioning themselves as insiders (i.e., friends), while the interviewer took up a position as an outsider (i.e., a nonfriend or stranger), often by remaining silent. Exploring friend moments revealed the plausibility of viewing friendship as actively interactional and nontrivially relational. Friend moments represent a particular kind of friendship talk where speakers accomplish the task of doing friendship in interaction, in personally relevant and situationally appropriate ways.

Patterns of Intimacy and Distancing as Young Women (and Men) Friends Exchange Stories of Romantic Relationships

Heterosexual U.S. adolescents tend to show gender differences in how they describe romantic relationships, with males being positioned as cool and objectifying toward females, and females as warm and positively engaged (Simon et al. 1992; Tolman 2002). However, according to developmental theory (Arnett 2000, 2004), such gender scripts should be less operative in early adulthood, when romantic relationships become a prime concern for college-age youth regardless of gender. Partly confirming this premise, a recent study of male undergraduate friends in California found that during casual conversations, one of their most prevalent story telling patterns was shifting between positioning themselves as warm and engaged (intimate) and as cool and objectifying (distancing) toward romantic partners (Korobov and Thorne 2006). For purposes of a gender comparison, the present archival, mixed-methods study deployed the same methodology to examine the prevalence of these patterns for a companion college sample of 37 pairs of women friends. Gender differences were found for only one of four story patterns: Women friends told proportionately more stories than men that were mildly intimate. Otherwise the stories of both genders showed parallel patterns either of dense distancing, or of repeatedly shifting between intimacy and distancing. In addition, women and men friends showed a similar versatility in the array of patterns they produced. The findings suggest mild operability of a gendered intimacy script, but more generally support the premise that working out what one does and doesn’t want in a romantic relationship is a common concern for young adult friends regardless of gender.

Friendship Values and Cross-Category Friendships: Understanding Adult Friendship Patterns Across Gender, Sexual Orientation and Race

The present research used an intersectional analysis in examining whether women and men who have, versus do not have, cross-category friendships differ in what they value as important in a close friendship. Parallel analyses were conducted to examine cross-orientation and cross-race friendships across gender and identity status (minority and majority), with age as a covariate for all analyses. Participants were 1415 adult women and men, ranging in age from 18-80, residing in the United States, who completed a friendship profile questionnaire by reporting basic demographic information about themselves and their close friends. Participants’ importance ratings of six different friendship values were utilized to interrogate existing friendship patterns. Three general friendship values (trust and honesty, respect friend as person, there when needed) and three cross-identity salient friendship values (similar lives & experiences, similar values, nonjudgmental) were considered. Individuals with and without cross-category friendships did not significantly differ in their ratings for any of the three general friendship values. Individuals with cross-orientation and cross-race friendships placed less importance on similar lives & experiences than those with no such friendships. Other cross-identity salient friendship values were uniquely related to cross-orientation and cross-race friendship patterns. Although women rated all six friendship values as more important than did men, women and men displayed similar friendship value patterns across cross-category friendships and identity. These findings are discussed in the context of feminist intersectional theory.

Eva of the Farm (review)

Reviewed by: Eva of the Farm Jeannette Hulick Calhoun, Dia . Eva of the Farm; illus. by Kate Slater. Atheneum, 2012. [256p]. Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-1700-7 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-1702-1 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-7. Twelve-year-old Eva (Evangeline) loves her life on the family orchard in Washington State, loves her baby brother Achilles, and loves to write poetry. Indeed, writing poetry is Eva's way of making sense of her world, as she writes about how much she misses her grandmother and her former best friend, Chloe, and how she worries that her family will lose their farm that, to her, is utterly magical. This last worry is not an idle one, as a events soon put Eva's family in dire financial straits. However, Eva's poetry, a newfound adult friend, and Eva's own strength bolster her through this difficult time, and although the story ends with the farm's ownership still in limbo, there is a feeling of hope and possibility as well. Calhoun writes Eva's story in ragged-right-margin prose, with Eva's many poems tuned a bit tighter and printed in italics to differentiate them from the main narrative. The poetic voice of the narrative generally works well, and some of Eva's poems are lovely in their simplicity ("Sit/ in the pure snow./ Fall/ on your back. Swish/ arms up and down./ Make/ a snow angel./ Do/ it again./ Fill/ the orchard with angels./ Watch/ them [End Page 11] rise from the snow./ Send/ them flying to Achilles"). Others are a bit overwrought, even for an imaginative twelve-year-old, and Eva's melodramatic artistic nature slips into the histrionic at times. Calhoun deftly handles Eva's relationships with her parents, her brother, and her former BFF, however, rendering them realistic in their complexity and intensity. The potentially hopeful but ultimately unresolved ending is also refreshing, and kids who have also faced financial uncertainty may especially relate to Eva's family's plight. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois