xiv Foreword
physical health, connections between persons’ mental health status and the difficul-
ties of maintaining best friendships, and the efforts and contingencies of sustaining
long- lasting friendships. The potential for conflict across the forms and degrees of
friendship is scrutinized in chapters concerning competition in friendship; wrong-
doing, betrayal, and forgiveness in friendships; and the aftermath of romantic rela-
tionships that have included friendship as a dimension. Along the way, the book
also features a chapter addressing the potentially transformative consequences
associated with friendship and bourgeoning social media, and chapters examining
the crucial implications of social identifiers such as gender, sexual orientation, race,
and ethnicity in constituting our practices for understanding and participating in
friendship.
Friendship has manifold psychological significance and time- honored recogni-
tion as indispensable for individual and communal well- being. Given its situated
and mutable achievement, it is imperative to investigate the continually emerging
practices, experiences, forms, and functions of friendship. In doing so, the chapters
composing The Psychology of Friendship provide a valuable survey of current social
scientific inquiry addressing this essential human relationship.
William K. Rawlins
Ohio UniversityReferences
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