Women and Men As Friends

Relationships Across the Life Span in the 21st Century

Michael Monsour

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135658854
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This monograph studies women and men as friends from a developmental perspective. Women and Men as Friends examines cross-sex friendships from early childhood through old age, then summarizes the findings and offers recommendations on how friendship between males and females can be encouraged throughout the life span. In each chapter three themes are documented and applied to the corresponding stage of life:
*Cross-sex friendships enrich an individual's social network in generic and unique ways.
*Social and structural barriers interfere with the formation of cross-sex friendships in every stage of life.
*Cross-sex friendships affect and are affected by an individual's ongoing social construction of self throughout the life cycle. The primary audience for the volume is scholars and students in personal relationship study (interpersonal communication, social psychology, sociology) with a secondary audience of scholars in family studies, developmental psychology, and clinical psychologists. The book can also be used as a supplemental text in graduate and undergraduate courses for the relevant disciplines.

1
Cross-Sex Friendships and the Social Construction of Self Across the Life Span

Cross-sex friendship is a relationship ripe for study.

—Kathy Werking (1997a, p.166)

Cross-sex friendships (i.e., nonromantic relationships between persons of different sexes) occupy an unusual place in the relational fabric of society. Because they lack the prominence and notoriety of same-sex friendships, romantic relationships, and family ties, they have had to struggle for recognition in the scholarly and lay communities. The majority of friendship scholars have either ignored or given little attention to cross-sex friendships. As a result, the cross-sex friendship literature is young, fragmented, meager, and fundamentally atheoretical (Monsour, 1997). Mirroring the lack of scholarly attention, many individuals for various reasons in different stages of life do not have friends of the other sex. The reasons for having and not having cross-sex friendships are explored throughout this book.

The relative lack of attention given to cross-sex friendships by scholars and lay persons is unfortunate. Changes occurring in society suggest that structural opportunities for cross-sex friendship formation are increasing and will continue to do so as we move further into the 21st century. Two of those changes include the increased presence of women in the workplace (Gini, 1998), and the growing use of the internet for friendship formation (Adams, 1998; Parks & Floyd, 1996). Those changes and others described in this book will make cross-sex friendships far more prevalent in the next 20 years than they have been in the last 20.

The marginalization of cross-sex friendships by the scholarly community and the avoidance of those friendships by many lay persons throughout the life cycle is unfortunate for another reason. As I intend to document throughout this book, cross-sex friendships enrich the social networks of children, teenagers, adults, and senior citizens in generic and unique ways. Those friendships also have a significant impact on how individuals in all stages of life view themselves and members of the other sex. Indeed, as suggested by the title of this chapter, cross-sex friendships play an important role in the social construction of self across the life span.

The current chapter previews the organizational format followed throughout the book and is divided into three major sections. In the first section I introduce the three central themes of the book in order to lay the groundwork for subsequent presentation of the themes in the remaining six chapters. In the second and third sections I provide an explanation for my adoption of a life-cycle perspective on cross-sex friendships and offer my definition of those relationships.

THREE THEMES OF THE BOOK

Three interrelated themes are developed in each chapter and applied to the corresponding stage of life. The first theme is that cross-sex friendships enrich the social networks of participating members. The second theme is that structural and social barriers interfere with the formation of cross-sex friendships throughout the life span. My third theme is also the central theoretical premise of the book (i.e., cross-sex friendships affect and are affected by an individual’s perpetual social construction of self throughout the life cycle). Each of these themes are now briefly explained.

Cross-Sex Friendships and the Enrichment of Social Networks

Enrichment of social networks through the formation and maintenance of cross-sex friendships occurs in two primary ways. First, because cross-sex friendships possess many of the same characteristics as same-sex friendships (Werking, 1997a; Wright, 1989), cross-sex friendships are able to provide many of the same benefits supplied by their same-sex counterparts. The benefits of cross-sex friendships that mirror those of same-sex friendship are referred to throughout the book as generic benefits. Cross-sex friendships also enrich social networks by providing unique benefits that are difficult or impossible to obtain in same-sex friendships.

Generic Benefits of Cross-sex Friendships. Generic benefits of cross-sex friendship are benefits that are provided to a similar extent (sometimes more, sometimes less) by same-sex friendships. Although generic benefits furnished by cross-sex friends may vary from one stage of life to the next, several of them are available throughout the life cycle. Two of those benefits are the provision of social support and protection against loneliness.

Social support can come from almost anyone in an individual’s social network (e.g., family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers). Friends provide one another with various forms of social support (Rawlins, 1992). Social support can involve very concrete things such as helping a friend move into an apartment or helping him or her install a new computer program. Social support is also manifested in more abstract ways, such as providing emotional support to a friend in a time of crisis or just enjoying each other’s company. Scholars have been unable to arrive at a consensus on the exact meaning of social support because of its multifaceted nature (Crohan & Antonucci, 1989; Sarason, Sarason, & Gurung, 1997). Nevertheless, I have adopted the definition of social support presented by Crohan and Antonucci because it seems sensible and similar to other conceptualizations found in the literature (e.g., Fleming & Baum, 1986; Hansson & Carpenter, 1994). They define social support as “interactional transactions that include one or more of the following key elements: affect, aid, and affirmation” (p. 131, 1989). Affective transactions involve expressions of emotional support, liking, admiration, respect, or love. The provision of aid refers to more concrete transactions such as giving information and practical assistance. Finally, affirmation is expressed when a partner agrees with the appropriateness of some action or attitude of the other. The three elements of social support often overlap. For example, if one friend discloses something very personal about herself and the other friend reacts in a positive fashion, that self-disclosure would illustrate both positive affect and affirmation. In each chapter I review evidence documenting that cross-sex friends supply one another with social support in the corresponding stage of life.

Sarason and her colleagues concluded that individuals with satisfying levels of social support deal better with stress and are generally healthier than those who lack sufficient social support (Sarason et al., 1997). Along similar lines, Ornish reviewed the literature on emotional support and concluded that individuals without such support have a three- to five-times greater risk of premature death and related diseases such as cancer, strokes, heart attacks and auto immune diseases (1998). Researchers do not know for sure why social support contributes to better health, but one theory is that people with a supportive network are more prone to seek medical attention and follow through on medical advice because members of their social support network insist that they do (Harvard Health Letter, May, 1999).

The unfortunate flip side of social support is social strain (Rook, 1992). Friends, family, and spouses are not always supportive and are sometimes viewed as unreliable, critical, and irritating (Walen & Lachman, 2000). Friendship scholars are careful to note that friendships are sometimes rife with difficulties (Berndt, 1996; Newcomb & Bagwell, 1996). Although the primary focus in this book is on the advantages of cross-sex friendships, potential disadvantages are periodically identified throughout the book as the need arises. Possible neg-ative repercussions of cross-sex friendship can discourage individuals of any age from pursuing friendships with members of the other sex (Adams, 1985; Sroufe, Bennett, Englund, Urban, & Shulman, 1993).

Another generic benefit of cross-sex friendship, a corollary of the social support benefit, is that cross-sex friends throughout the life cycle can provide a buffer against loneliness (for old age see O’Connor, 1993; for young adulthood see Werking, 1997a; for toddlerhood see Whaley & Rubenstein, 1994). Severe cases of loneliness have been linked to serious consequences such as health problems, substance abuse, and even suicide (Jones, Rose, & Russell, 1990; Koenig & Abrams, 1999; Perlman & Landolt, 1999; Rotenberg, 1999; Snodgrass, 1989; Stack, 1998). In referring to the more extreme cases of loneliness, Duck bluntly stated “Loneliness is fatal” (1983, p. 16). Even when loneliness is not severe, it is still an unpleasant emotional experience related to a number of social and personal problems (Perlman & Landolt, 1999; Sullivan, 1953). For example, lonely individuals are viewed as being less likable and desirable as friends when compared to their nonlonely counterparts (Lau & Kong, l999). However, scholars do not know for sure if loneliness causes one to be viewed as undesirable, or whether being viewed as undesirable causes one to feel lonely. Relatedly, loneliness can have a negative impact on a person’s self-concept. Lonely people have a poorer self-image than the nonlonely (Duck, Pond, & Leatham, 1994; Inderbitzen-Pisaruk, Clark, & Solano, 1992). The stigma attached to being lonely interferes with a person’s level of confidence in forming social bonds, thereby creating a vicious cycle in which the lonely become lonelier (Lau & Kong, 1999).

The loneliness construct is revisited in each of the remaining chapters of this book because of its pervasiveness throughout the life cycle (Rotenberg, 1999)and its hypothesized connection to friendships or lack thereof. In the upcoming pages I provide some basic information on (a) the definition of loneliness, (b) the types of loneliness, (c) the frequency of loneliness, (d) the major theoretical explanations of loneliness, and (e) how loneliness is viewed differently across the life cycle.

Most individuals, lay persons and professionals alike, the very old and the very young, have an intuitive understanding of what loneliness means (Perlman & Peplau, 1998). Lay definitions of loneliness have common ingredients. Lay persons focus on the thoughts and emotions related to loneliness such as anger, depression, paranoia, and feelings of isolation and rejection. Individuals also have a “cluster of images” about why people experience loneliness (Perlman & Peplau, 1998, p. 573). Despite the fact that most individuals have an intuitive understanding of what loneliness means, the loneliness construct is complex and does not easily lend itself to analytical dissection. A consensus on what loneliness means and what causes loneliness does not exist in the academic community. However, after a brief review of scholarly approaches to defining and understanding loneliness, Perlman and Peplau (1998) concluded that most experts agree that loneliness is unpleasant; that it is not synonymous with social isolation; and that it results from quantitative or qualitative deficiencies in one’s social network.

The 1981 definition of loneliness offered by Perlman and Peplau(or some close variation of it) is frequently utilized by loneliness scholars and was adopted for this book. Loneliness is “the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person’s network of social relations is deficient in some important way, either quantitatively or qualitatively” (1981, p. 31; also see Perlman & Peplau, 1998). As I demonstrate throughout this book, cross-sex friendships alleviate perceived deficiencies in a person’s social network from early childhood through extreme old age.

The different types of loneliness are related to the duration and causes of loneliness and the definition of loneliness just presented (Perlman & Peplau, 1998). Loneliness scholars distinguish between trait and situational loneliness (Rook, 1988). Trait loneliness, also known as chronic loneliness, has been theoretically explained as resembling a personality trait (Shaver, Furman, & Buhrmester, 1985). Those who are chronically lonely are lonely regardless of the situation (Perlman & Peplau, 1998). Situational loneliness stems from the situation an individual is in. For example, a first-year college student attending a new school away from home may suffer from situational loneliness. Situational loneliness, although unpleasant, is often transitory as individuals form new social bonds (Rook, 1988). In each chapter of this book I explore ways in which cross-sex friendships help chronically and situationally lonely individuals.

Based largely on Weiss’ seminal book, Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation, loneliness scholars also distinguish between emotional and social loneliness (1973). Emotional loneliness results from the absence of intimate relationships (Sullivan, 1953). Similarly, some scholars argue for “functional specificity” (Litwak, 1985; Weiss, 1973). Functional specificity means that certain kinds of relationships meet needs that can only be met by that type of relationship. Social loneliness results from having an inadequate social network. For the socially lonely, loneliness does not mean a lack of a central, fulfilling relationship, but rather the lack of a satisfying network of social relationships. Throughout the book I review evidence that cross-sex friends in each phase of the life cycle relieve both social and emotional loneliness.

Just how common is loneliness in American society? Experts believe that loneliness afflicts the majority of people at least some of the time. Rotenberg began a recent edited volume on loneliness with the following observation: “After reviewing the literature, both academic and nonacademic (e.g., popular media), it has become obvious to me that loneliness is an inherent part of the human condition” (1999, p. 3). Other loneliness scholars have expressed similar sentiments concerning the inevitability and pervasiveness of loneliness across the life cycle (Perlman & Landolt, 1999; Rook, 1988). As suggested earlier, chronically lonely individuals are lonely all the time. Whether chronic loneliness carries over from one stage of life to the next is not known because of a general lack of longitudinal studies.

Perlman and Peplau examined data from a National Council on Aging survey involving over 18,000 respondents between the ages of 18 and 85 (Perlman, 1991; Perlman & Peplau, 1998). Their goal was to explore how the frequency of loneliness varies over the adult life cycle. Unfortunately, data on the friendship patterns of those 18,000 individuals is not available. Nevertheless, when averaged across sex of respondent, 43% of respondents reported feelings of loneliness in the 18 to 24 age group, comparted to 35% of individuals in the 25 to 34 age group. Approximately 27% of women and men ages 35 to 44 reported feelings of loneliness. The percentage dropped to 25% of the respondents between the ages of 45 and 64. For individuals in the 65 to 74, 75 to 84, and 85+ age groups the percentages, respectively, were 26%, 28%, and 28%. A higher percentage of younger adults than any other group reported feelings of loneliness. There were some differences between women and men. Approximately 20% of males and 30% females in the 45 to 64 years age group reported feelings of loneliness. The gap between men and women narrowed in the 75 to 84 years age group and disappeared for individuals over the age of 85.

What about loneliness during early childhood and adolescence? There is some debate concerning how early in life a person might experience loneliness (Perlman & Peplau, 1998), but the majority of loneliness scholars now agree that children as young as kindergarten and first grade, sometimes younger, understand and experience loneliness (Burgess, Ladd, Kochenderferg, Lambert, & Birch, 1999; Rotenberg & Hymel, 1999). Perlman and Landolt noted significant areas of overlap in the way loneliness is conceptualized by scholars studying adult loneliness and those investigating childhood and adolescent loneliness (1999). For example, the two theories of adult loneliness that have become prominent over the last 25 years (i.e., social needs theory and the cognitive processes approach; Perlman & Peplau, 1998; Terrell-Deutsch, 1999), appear to be equally applicable to children and adolescents (Rotenberg, 1999). In a nutshell, proponents of a social needs explanation of loneliness contend that people have basic social needs that can be met only in personal relationships (Bowlby, 1973; Sullivan, 1953; Weiss, 1973). When those needs are not met, loneliness results. The social needs approach emphasizes the emotional aspects of loneliness (Terrell -Deutsch, 1999). Advocates of the cognitive processes approach argue that loneliness results not so much from unmet needs, but rather from a cognitive realization of the difference between what one would like to have in the way of relationships, and what one actually has (Peplau, Miceli, & Morasch, 1982; Peplau & Perlman, 1979).

Although the definition of loneliness used in this book reflects more of a co...

Table of contents

• LEA’s Series on Personal Relationships
• Contents
• Series Editor's Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Cross-Sex Friendships and the Social Construction of Self Across the Life Span
• 2 Cross-Sex Friendships in Early Childhood
• 3 Cross-Sex Friendships in Middle and Late Childhood
• 4 Cross-Sex Friendships in Adolescence
• 5 Cross-Sex Friendships in Adulthood
• 6 Cross-Sex Friendships in Old Age
• 7 Cross-Sex Friendships and Self-Concepts From the “Cradle to the Grave”
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index