Friendships and Adaptation in the Life Course - Psychology ...

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356 HARTUP AND STEVENS als trigger changes in relationships and that these changes extend through the life course. For example, (a) among very young children, new coordinations and combinations in memory emerge at about 2 years of age, appearing to serve as a basis for an increase of coordination and collaboration in the interaction between toddlers and their friends (Brownell, 1986); (b) changes associated with puberty trigger increases in intimacy between opposite-gender friends but not same-gender friends (Sharabany, Gershoni, & Hofman, 1981 ); and (c) when strength and mobility decline in old age, one' s friends must initiate social contact and activities, thereby changing relationship reciprocities (O'Connor, 1993; Rawlins, 1992). To consider friendships across the life course requires the differentiation of deep structure, which characterizes these relationships, from surface structure. We use deep structure to refer to the social meaning (essence) of relationships and surface structure to refer to the social exchanges that characterize them at any given moment or in any given situation--a convention that is similar to the one used in linguistics (Chomsky, 1965). The friendship deep structure can be identified by researchers asking participants to describe a friend or friends--especially an ideal or hypothetical friend--and then content analyzing the results. Accordingly, among young children, friendship expectations have been found to center mainly on common activities and concrete reciprocities ("We play." "And I give them food, so they give me food back"; Goodnow & Burns, 1985, p. 120). School-aged children describe friends as understanding, loyal, and trustworthy; children expect to spend time with their friends, share interests, and engage in self-disclosure with them ("A good friend is someone who likes you and spends time with you and forgives you and doesn't actually bash you up"; p. 120). Children do not use words like intimate to describe their friends, but such constructs begin to differentiate these relationships shortly before adolescence (Bigelow, 1977; Selman, 1980). Older individuals describe an ideal friend mainly as being supportive (dependable, understanding, and accepting), a confidant, and trustworthy. Most important, high school seniors, newlyweds, middle-aged parents, and soon-to-be retirees differ relatively little from one another in their emphasis on these reciprocities when they describe an ideal friend. Similarity between friends (sharing interests, experiences, and activities as well as communicative compatibility) is regarded, however, as an important friendship attribute among adolescents but de- creases subsequently (L. Weiss & Lowenthal, 1975). Close examination of these results reveals differences as well as similarities in the manner in which friends are described by younger and older individuals. Differences occur mainly in the number of psychological constructs used, complexity and orga- nization of information and ideas, and flexibility with which this information is used to describe a friend, These age differences are similar to those recorded in person perceptions (Lives- ley & Bromley, 1973), which probably reflect general cognitive development. Similarities across age occur in the extent to which reciprocity and mutuality emerge in the meaning structure. Reci- procity does not have narrow connotations in these descriptions; most individuals do not describe friendships as exchange relationships in which inputs and resource exchanges must be equiv- alent or one individual's behavior must exactly match another's. Nevertheless, children and adults of all ages consider these relationships to be marked by reciprocation, that is, mutuality-- the giving and taking, and returning in kind or degree. On this basis, then, we argue that the friendship deep structure in West- ern cultures is best described as "symmetrical reciprocity" (see Hinde, 1979; and Youniss, 1980). Because reciprocity constitutes the friendship deep structure across the life course, certain outcomes or consequences should be evident at all ages. Social reciprocities should be significant sources of security (Bowlby, t969), self-worth (Sullivan, 1953), and well-being (R. S. Weiss, 1973). These conditions, in turn, should support successful coping, especially with developmental transitions such as school entrance, puberty, workforce entrance, marriage, child bearing, spouse' s death, and retirement (Magnusson, Stattin, & Allen, 1985). On the basis that friendship reciprocities support coping in this fashion, one expects these relationships to promote good outcomes regardless of age. Surface structures--the actual exchanges that occur between friends--differ from situation to situation and from early childhood to old age. Social reciprocities between two toddlers, for example, are manifested mainly in time spent together and con- nected interactions (Howes, 1989). Reciprocities between kin- dergarten friends are more elaborate socially but remain basi- cally concrete, consisting of play and sharing (Howes, 1983). Reciprocities among adolescent friends consist of common activities (especially socializing), augmented by self-disclosure and expectations of loyalty and trust (Berndt, 1989). Reciproci- ties among adult friends are centered on work activities, and many friendships become "fused" or "blended" with work (Hess, 1972; Winstead, Derlega, & Montgomery, 1995). Other fusions occur with marriage; husbands and wives frequently share friends with whom issues in marriage and family relations are stressed (Hess, 1972; Rawlins, 1992). Reciprocities among older persons are more separated from family and work but concern support issues and companionship. Surface structures at this time include friends exchanging letters and gifts, talking on the telephone, doing favors for one another, and expressing affection and mutual respect (Rawlins, 1992; Shea, Thomp- son, & Blieszner, 1988). What friends talk about and what they do with one another thus change with age and circumstance. We believe that these changes in surface structure mainly reflect changes in the developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1953) confronting the individuals involved. So, among young children, friendship reciprocities support the acquisition of new social skills, especially expertise in cooperation and other socially co- ordinated skills (e.g., conflict resolution). Among older children and adolescents, the emphasis shifts to intimacy and other exchanges that support a sense of self-identity, sensitivity with respect to the needs of others, and maintenance of mutually oriented relationships with "agemates"--including members of both the same and opposite genders (Sullivan, 1953). Among young adults, friendshiPS center on a new collection of developmental tasks--work and family issues (Hess, 1972). Finally, when older individuals confront major life transitions that require reorganization of one's lifestyle and expectations, friendship content changes once again. Clearly, the socializing functions of these relationships are closely tied to the developmental challenges that the individuals involved face, whatever their age. Some researchers suggested that friendship surface structures are mainly socializing in childhood and adolescence because they support innovation in both social understanding and social skill, but they are mainly sustained in old age, through which
normative traditionalism is supported (Hess, 1972). Research shows, however, that these differences may be overstated: So- cialization, for example, remains an important friendship func- tion throughout the life course. Older individuals assist one another in the reorganization of lifestyles and identities, such as when retirees seek the company of those already retired (Adams, 1987), recent widows are aided by long-term widows in reorganizing their lives as single women (Bankoff, 1983; Stevens, 1995), and new residents in housing for older persons are assisted in their adaptation to the new setting by long-term residents (Armstrong & Goldsteen, 1990; Hochschild, 1973). Similarly, sustaining functions may occur among friends across a wide age range, not merely among older adults and their friends. Certainly, among older adults, "values, which in con- temporary terms are dated, can be freely expressed with people whose life span has given them comparable experiences and outlook" (Jerrome, 1981, p. 190), but friendships also support normative commitments among children and adolescents (Kan- del, 1978b). To summarize, the friendships of toddlers and the friendships of older adults are both similar and different. On the one hand, social interaction between both younger and older friends is marked by symmetrical reciprocity (deep structure). On the other hand, the social exchanges that occur between friends (surface structure) reflect salient developmental tasks. The friendship deep structure is thus developmentally stable, whereas friendship surface structure is not. To consider friendships in life course terms, then, requires that attention be given to both continuities and discontinuities in their manifestations and developmental implications. Two hypotheses, can be ad- vanced. (1) Good friends support well-being from early childhood onward through the reciprocities that occur between the friends; consequences may extend from immediate to future adaptations. (2) Friends support one another in coping with the developmental (time-limited) challenges that confront them, the consequences of which may also extend from present to future adaptations. We examine empirical evidence relating to these hypotheses in subsequent sections. Three Friendship Dimensions Researchers and clinicians commonly differentiate among individuals--both children and adults--according to whether or not they have friends. Clinicians, for example, want to know whether a troubled child or adult client has friends, a circle of friends, or a best friend--but usually little else in this domain. Researchers enter "has friends" into their regression equations but seldom more. Whether or not one has friends receives this emphasis for two reasons: First, making and keeping friends requires good social skills, so having friends is an indication of (a proxy for) good social adjustment. Second, acquiring friends and maintaining these relationships require a person to be other oriented as well as self-oriented, espouse egalitarian attitudes, and manage conflicts with one's companions in con- structive ways. On the basis of these arguments, having friends increases one's social skills and well-being, which, in turn, increase one's likelihood of making and keeping friends. Friendship experience, however, cannot be reduced only to having friends. Friendships vary greatly from individual to 'indi- FRIENDSHIPS IN THE LIFE COURSE 357 vidual as well as from companion to companion (Hartup, 1996). First, enormous variation occurs in who one's friends are. Some companions are cooperative, outgoing, and socially skilled; others are not. Sometimes companions are antisocial; at other times, they are not. Such differences are obvious, but their significance is often overlooked. New evidence suggests, though, that the identity of one's friends (i.e., their personal and social characteristics) accounts for more outcome variance than whether one has a friend; antisocial children and adolescents are examples (Dishion, Andrews, & Crosby, 1995). Second, friendships differ from one another qualitatively (Hartup, 1996), that is, in their content or normative functions (e.g., what the two individuals do together), their construc- tiveness (e.g., whether one normally resolves conflicts with one's friends using negotiation or the "power-assertion" influence strategy), their closeness (e.g., if one's companions spend time together, they engage in many different activities as opposed to a few and their exchanges involve self-disclosure), their sym- metry (e.g., whether friends influence one another equally or "social power" is distributed unequally), and their affective character (e.g., whether friendships are supportive and secure or nonsupportive and conflict ridden). Qualitative features are well recognized in research on mother-infant and marital relationships (Bowlby, 1969; Gottman, 1979) but not in relation to friendships and their developmental implications. Friendships may thus be assets or liabilities, depending on who one's friends are and the quality of one's relationships with them. Overly romanticized views of these relationships distort what they may contribute to development across the life course. Indeed, the identity of one's friends and the quality of one's relationships with them may be related to developmental outcome more closely than having friends. Occurrence Having Friends Consider the occurrence of having friends and what researchers know about it. First, toddlers sometimes interact with one another preferentially and the word friend enters their vocabu- lary during the third or fourth year (Howes, 1983). Various data sets suggest that about 75% of nursery school children are involved in reciprocated friendships, as measured by observed time spent in one another's company, nursery school teachers' reports, and maternal interviews (Hinde, Titmus, Easton, & Tamplin, 1985; Howes, 1983). This figure rises slightly through adolescence when 80% to 90% of teenagers report having mutual friends, usually including one or two best friends and several "close" friends or "good" friends (Van der Linden & Dijkman, 1989). Frequencies remain high (90%) among adults in midlife and then decline, but older adults more commonly have friends than not (Wright, 1989; Schutze & Lang, 1993). Small numbers of individuals have no friends as adults (6-7%)--a number that increases to 12% for women and 22% for men over Age 65 in the United States (Fischer & Phillips, 1982) and 19% for older persons in the Netherlands (Pearl Dykstra, personal communication, December 7, 1995). Second, friendship networks are small among preschool children, averaging about 1.7 friends for boys and 0.9 for girls, whereas school-aged children average 3.0-5.0 best friends, de-
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