The Psychology of Friendship - Oxford University Press (2016)

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Maintaining Long- Lasting Friendships

Debra L. Oswald

Friendships play a significant role in people’s social lives. Friendships provide signif-
icant social support and opportunities for social connection, and having friendships
is connected with mental well- being (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995), happiness
(e.g., Demir, Ozdeir, & Marum, 2011), and decreased social loneliness (e.g., Binder,
Roberts, & Sutcliffe, 2012). Given the importance of friendships, it is essential to
understand not only how friendships are initiated and formed but also how people
maintain these friendships over time. In this chapter, I will provide an overview of
the research on the importance of engaging in maintenance behaviors to sustain
long- lasting, quality friendships. The first part of the chapter reviews the types of
behaviors used to maintain friendships with a focus on understanding the variabil-
ity of behaviors, friendship developmental aspects, and the frequency of use and
effectiveness of these maintenance behaviors. The final part of this chapter provides
an overview of theoretical frameworks for understanding the process of friendship
maintenance. Specifically, we consider how maintenance behaviors function within
the context of interdependence theory and interpersonal styles.
Unlike other types of relationships, such as marital and familial relationships,
friendships are purely voluntary (Wiseman, 1986). As such, they have a unique
vulnerability to relationship deterioration and termination. Indeed it has been sug-
gested that friendships have the “weakest of any close bond in social life, because if
it loses the qualities which make for the extraordinary closeness combined with the
voluntariness it encourages, it chances loss of all” (Wiseman, p. 192). For example,
Roberts and Dunbar (2011) found that both close and intimate friendships, com-
pared with kin relations, experienced greater decrease in emotional intensity of the
relationships when there was a decrease in contact or joint activities. The research-
ers note that their study “reveals that even these very closest friends require active
maintenance (contact and performing activities together) to maintain a high level
of emotional closeness, and without this maintenance these relationships are prone
to decay” (p. 193). Effective maintenance of the relationship appears to be crucial
to the continued health and quality of the friendship.