Young Adult Friendship Research Articles

"Let's go over it again": Examining the intra- and interpersonal processes that perpetuate co-rumination in close relationships.

Co-rumination is an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy characterized by extensive, cyclical conversations regarding the causes and consequences of problems and associated negative emotions. Theory posits that over time, interpersonal benefits of co-rumination such as emotional intimacy reinforce the behavior, outweighing the resulting negative impacts on mental health. However, our understanding of how co-rumination is perpetuated within conversations is limited. This study (conducted in 2019-2020) aims to assess perceptions of partner co-rumination and responsiveness as factors that perpetuate co-rumination to better understand the intra- and interpersonal processes that influence how co-rumination unfolds within conversations. To do this, we utilized an observational paradigm with primarily White, female, young adult friendship dyads wherein one individual (the discloser) disclosed and discussed an extradyadic problem with a close friend (the responder). Using an empathic accuracy paradigm, participants reported their own and their partner's co-rumination and responsiveness for every 30-s epoch. Results revealed biased estimations of partner co-rumination that may facilitate reciprocity of co-ruminative conversation within the dyad. Additionally, while greater perceptions of partner co-rumination were perceived as responsive by disclosers and elicited responsive behavior from responders, perceived partner responsiveness did not perpetuate co-rumination within the conversation. Together, these findings enhance our understanding of the intra- and interpersonal processes that influence how co-rumination unfolds within conversations between close friends, but they also draw attention to unanswered questions in the field regarding partner contributions to co-rumination, the nature of problems discussed, and generalizability of these findings as well as those of other extant co-rumination research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Say you'll be there: Associations between observed verbal responses, friendship quality, and perceptions of support in young adult friendships.

Friendships are a primary source of social support during young adulthood; however, little is known about the factors associated with young adults feeling greater support during interactions with friends. We examined how micro-level verbal responses and macro-level judgments of friendship quality were associated with perceptions of support following an interaction between friends. Same-gender friend dyads (N = 132; 66.2% female; 18-24 years, M age = 19.63) took turns speaking about a problem, then participants rated their perceptions of support given and received following the task. We coded each participant's verbal responses while in the listening role. Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs) revealed significant partner effects for negative engagement responses, such that greater negative engagement responses were linked with the partner perceiving poorer support both given and received. Models revealed significant actor effects for supportive responses, such that greater supportive responses predicted the actor perceiving better support both given and received. Additionally, models revealed significant actor effects of friendship quality predicting actors' perceiving better support both given and received. Finally, exploratory models revealed minimal interactions between a few types of verbal responses and positive friendship quality. Taken together, results suggest that (a) negative verbal responding styles may be more meaningfully associated with partners' perceptions of support in the moment than are supportive behaviours, whereas (b) supportive verbal responding styles may be more meaningfully associated with actors' perceptions of support in the moment, and (c) actors' judgments of friendship quality are strongly associated with their overall perceptions of support, and a critical factor to consider in future research.

Prospective content in the friendship conversations of young adults

Prospection is cognitive processes that involve constructing, encoding, and remembering the future. Less is known about the how these processes are evident in the prospective content of conversations. This study sought to identify and describe evidence of the prospective content in the conversations of friends as they transition to adulthood. The present secondary content analysis of the videotaped conversations of 15 young adult friendship dyads (n = 30, 16 females, 14 males, mean age = 21.3 years) in Canada examined these conversations based the following characteristics of prospection: simulation, reasoning about counterfactuals, constructing multiple possible futures, and episodic memory of the past. Four categories of prospective content were evident in these conversations, these processes were used sparingly in all but one conversation, and relatively few of them were collaborative in that dyad partners did not appear to serve to augment, clarify, or disconfirm prospective content.

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.

Emotional investment

This study examined the utility of the investment model in understanding the experience and expression of emotion in young adult friendships (179 undergraduate students). The results provide support for the utility of the investment model components (i.e., satisfaction, investment, alternative quality, and commitment) in understanding (a) friends’ anger and guilt experiences and (b) the four types of anger expression examined (i.e., integrative assertion, passive aggression, distributive aggression, and non-assertive denial), but the model provided limited support for the four types of guilt expressions examined (i.e., apology–concession, explanations–justification, guilt appeasement, and denial–withdrawal). Support was found for the investment model’s claim that commitment serves a mediating role between the other model components (i.e., satisfaction, investment, and alternative quality) and other relational components.

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

The existence of long-distance (LD) friendships throws into question assumptions that scholars of interpersonal communication often make about commitment to relationships, the development of relationships, and friendships. An analysis of turning points comparing commitment changes in young-adult geographically close and LD same-sex friendships revealed high and fluctuating levels of commitment over the history of the friendships for both types. Over 80% of those having LD friends reported their levels of commitment were currently increasing, rather than decreasing. Women were more likely than men to report nonlinear trajectories for their friendships, more downturns in commitment to their friendships, and more turning points related to changes in commitment to their friendships.

Commitment and Trust in Young Adult Friendships

Given the importance of maintaining mutuality in interdependent relationships, the goal of the present research was to determine if interpersonal trust serves as a gauge of partners’ commitment within young adults’ close friendships. It was hypothesized that individuals trust their friends to the degree that their friends are committed to their relationship, and that individuals’ perceptions of their friends’ commitment mediates this association. A correlational design was employed and measures were obtained from both members of 60 same-sex friendship dyads. A multilevel modeling approach was used to perform a mediational analysis of model variables; the hypotheses were confirmed. Furthermore, it was revealed that friends demonstrate a moderate degree of mutual commitment in their relationships. Potential avenues for future research regarding the development and consequences of trust in close friendships are discussed.

Friendship and Need Fulfillment During Three Phases of Young Adulthood

Theory and knowledge about adult friendship have not been integrated within a broader life-span perspective, thus leaving us with a disjointed understanding of adult friendship, marriage and parent-child relationships. The present study redresses this situation by examining developmental differences in young adult friendship within the broader context of their network of significant family relationships. Robert Weiss' (1974) conceptualization of social provisions was used as the basis for comparing the roles that close friends play in need fulfillment to the roles played by other network members. Predominantly White middle-class male and female adults (ages 20 to 35 years) were recruited from three family-role-defined phases of young adulthood (N = 180): (i) the single phase (i.e. romantically uncommitted), (ii) the married-without-children phase, and (iii) the parenthood phase (i.e. married with young children). Participants rated the extent to which they received each of nine social provisions through their relationships with their mother, father, closest friend, spouse or casual dating partner, and their oldest child (if applicable). In general, the findings revealed that reliance on friends to satisfy social needs is greatest during the single phase and is reduced significantly during the marital and parenthood phases. Women report gaining higher levels of certain social provisions (especially emotional support) from friends than men across all three phases. The importance of friends relative to other network members as suppliers of social provisions differed substantially between the three phases; these differences appeared to be integrally tied to differences in family role involvement. Neither Weiss' relationships-specificity model nor Cantor's (1979) hierarchical-compensatory model adequately described the organization of need-fulfilling networks across all three phases.

Friendly fire: Topical variations in conflict among same‐ and cross‐sex friends

This investigation identified conflict events in young adult friendship. In addition, we examined whether different sources of conflict characterize same‐ and cross‐sex friendship and how gender influences perceptions of conflict issues in these relationships. Open‐ended descriptions of conflict episodes were elicited from same‐ and cross‐sex friendship dyads. Results indicated that same‐sex friends more frequently reported conflicts involving Disapproval about Relationship Choices and Sharing Space/Possessions compared to cross‐sex friends. Cross‐sex friends, on the other hand, reported conflicts involving Relationship Intimacy, Friendship Rule Violations, Communication Problems, and Annoying Behaviors more frequently than same‐sex friends. Additionally, in same‐sex friendships, males were more likely than females to report having conflict about Sharing Activities whereas females were more likely than males to report experiencing conflict about Sharing Space/Possessions. In cross‐sex friendships, males and females did not differ in the likelihood of reporting any of the conflict topic categories.

Managing disputes in young adult friendships: Modes of convenience, cooperation, and commitment

This paper investigates how young adult friends communicatively manage their interpersonal disputes. We examined the videotaped interaction of six pairs of disputing friends as well as each participant's subsequent, independently‐offered comments on the videotape of their discussion. We found that the friends in this study did not uniformly deal with their differences. Rather, three relationally constituted modes of dispute management, termed convenience, cooperation, and commitment, were identified. These modes were based on an interpretive analysis and comparison of the friendship pairs’ discursive practices and patterns of interpersonal perception.

Communicative Characteristics of the Lonely Person's Friendship Circle

The project described in this article examined several qualitative features of the friendship circles of lonely college students. It was expected that because communication is the cornerstone of young adult friendship, individuals whose social companions lacked important communicative attributes would experience poor peer relationships and, therefore, greater loneliness than individuals whose social companions possessed relevant communicative attributes. The liked peers of 208 participants (102 male, 106 female) were identified. Aggregate measures of social acceptance, loneliness, communication attitudes, communication values, and communication skills were obtained from liked peers, as were indices reflecting the extent to which individual participants were accepted by peers and felt lonely. Results indicated that some communicative attributes of the friendship circle predicted participants' levels of social acceptance and loneliness. A few significant gender differences in these relationships were also observed.

A Dialectical Analysis of the Tensions, Functions, and Strategic Challenges of Communication in Young Adult Friendships

This monograph synthesizes selected findings from an ongoing program of empirical and theoretical research regarding the nature and functions of communication in young adult friendships. It argues that friendship involves inherent dialectical tensions as a specific category of interpersonal relationship within American culture, in the actual communicative practices of friends, and within and across developmental periods of the life cycle. First are delineated four basic elements of the dialectical perspective employed to analyze the communication of friends: totality, contradiction, motion, and praxis. Next, an extensive examination of dialectical principles inherent in the communicative management of friendship occurs. The principles are then used to develop an intelligible frame for the practices and predicaments of managing young adult friendships communicatively with particular attention to gender, marriage, and work exigencies. Implications for the study of interpersonal communication in general and ...