Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Friendships in Young Adulthood

Friendships are among the many personal relationships people engage in during their lifetimes. Most of what relationship scientists know about friendship stems from research on children or college students in Western cultures; however, the research that has been conducted has consistently shown that people value and enjoy their friendships, that people invest time and effort to maintain their friendships, and that people with established friendships fare better psychologically and even live longer than do those without. Benefits notwithstanding, friendships also entail costs and pose challenges. This entry discusses the importance of friendship in young adults' lives; describes the process of friendship initiation, the development of closeness, and precursors to friendship dissolution; and highlights differences between men's and women's friendships and between same-sex and cross-sex friendships during young adulthood.

Importance of Friendship in Young Adulthood

During young adulthood, a given individual is likely to be navigating myriad personal relationships, including sibling relationships, parent-child relationships, employee-employer relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, team relationships, and teacher-mentoring relationships. At this point in life, however, friendships and romantic relationships take center stage. In one sample of unmarried college undergraduates, for example, almost half identified a romantic relationship as their “closest, deepest, most involved, and most intimate relationship” and more than a third identified a friendship. And, when young adults are asked about sources of joy and meaning in their lives, “friends” is among their most frequent responses.

A look at the quality of life during young adulthood (and in adolescence), particularly in Western cultures, might clarify the distinctive quality friendships have during young adulthood. During adolescence and young adulthood, individuals are likely to be romantically involved but not yet married or with children. Moreover, individuals generally spend a lot of time with others of their same age—in school and at play—at a time when they are exploring different relationship partners and developing their interpersonal skills and an understanding of their own enduring strengths, weaknesses, and desires and goals. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that at this point in life, people rate companionship, emotional support, and personal disclosure as among the most important qualities of friendship. During adolescence and young adulthood, friends seem to play an integral role—through constant conversation, activity sharing, and emotional support—in each other's understanding of self and others.

Defining Features of Friendship

Given the importance young adults attach to their friendships, one might expect to find clear definitions of friendship. However, friendship is difficult to pin down in a few concise words. That said, various studies consistently point to several defining features of young adults' perceptions of friendship. First, friendships are characterized by interdependence: One person's behavior both influences and is influenced by the other person's behavior. Second, that interdependence is voluntary: Friends seek out each other's company rather than interact by obligation (as is often the case in family relationships). Third, friends enjoy each other's company, even if that company is not as frequent as they would like: Friends enjoy talking, eating, and just “hanging out” with each other. Fourth, friends disclose: They reveal information about themselves to one another that they presumably would not share with just anybody. Although the degree of intimate self-disclosure varies from dyad to dyad and as a function of the sex composition of the dyad, friends tend to share their thoughts and feelings. Finally, young adults perceive friendships as involving a voluntary sense of mutual aid and loyalty. In other words, they perceive a friend as someone they can rely on and as someone who can rely on them when the going gets rough.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution