296 Benefits and Maintenance of Friendships
have relevance to friendships and other frameworks outside of psychology. For
example, within psychology these include
- Gable and Reis’s (2010) capitalization model (i.e., the view that sharing good
news with close others enhances relationships); - Clark’s distinction between communal and exchange relationships (i.e., rela-
tionships in which we benefit others because we are concerned with their wel-
fare versus relationships in which we do things for others on a quid pro quo
basis, repaying or setting up obligations; Clark & Aragon, 2013); and - Aron’s self- expansion model (i.e., the position that we have a basic desire for
self- expansion as a means to accomplish our goals and one way we can achieve
self- expansion is what Aron calls “including the other in the self ”— having a self-
concept that includes some of our partners resources, perspectives and identi-
ties; Aron & Nardone, 2012).
Recently, there have been two promising conceptual formulations on interpersonal
attraction. E. Finkel and Eastwick (2015) argue that we become attracted to others
who help us achieve our high priority needs or goals. Montoya and Horton (2013)
have advanced a two- dimensional view: They believe we are attracted to another
person to the extent that we believe the other person has the capacity to facilitate
our goals/ needs and the other person is willing to do so. Outside of psychology
there are also useful frameworks. Monsour, for example, points to dialectical and
feminist intersectional theories as relevant to friendships.
Of the theories that Fehr covered, the one that most directly stemmed from an
interest in dyadic relationships was Levinger’s analyses of the development and dete-
rioration of relationships (Levinger, 1980; Levinger & Snoek, 1972). Nonetheless,
in what Fehr offered as well as in the current volume, I do not find a general theory
of friendship. In this sense I do not find a significant shift in theorizing despite being
able to see changes in the attention devoted to specific theoretical viewpoints.
In a special section of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships on how we
should study relationships, published in 1995, Ellen Berscheid called for a grand
theory. She envisioned a theory that would be multidisciplinary and address vari-
ous types of relationships, recognizing the similarities and differences among them.
In general, I see the social sciences as having moved from more general theories to
narrower ones. In the present volume, I admired Lunsford and Hibbard and Walton
for advancing more focused conceptual models, respectively, regarding mentoring
and competition between friends.
In the 20 years since Berscheid wrote, no grand or metatheory of relationships
has been advanced and gained prominence. I do not see one on the immediate hori-
zon. Nonetheless, I would like to see a theory or model that addresses friendship in
a broader, more holistic manner.
Apropos of formulating a broader framework, there are two noteworthy dimen-
sions of friendships underlying much of this book: first, that relationships have