Latest Friendship Stories

A new study finds what most men have known for a long time: Social structure and romance are largely driven by women, according to various media reports. Robin Dunbar, University of Oxford anthropologist and author of the study analyzed 1.95 billion cell phone calls and 489 text messages to conduct his research. He and his team worked with a single cellular provider in undisclosed European country and kept all location data anonymous in order to protect the identities of the cell phone...

Partners provide a vital source of positive emotional support for the vast majority of people in the UK. Nine out of ten people who were married or cohabiting talk to their partner about their worries, according to data from Understanding Society, the world’s largest longitudinal household study of 40,000 UK households. Ninety four per cent of those surveyed rely on their partner for support when a problem crops up. As part of the Understanding Society study of 40,000 UK households,...

Social networks at church influence beliefs, behavior Friendships forged at church seem to play a major role in people's religious activities and beliefs — even when it comes to their views about how exclusive heaven is, according to a national study by a Baylor University sociology researcher. "Although church-based friendship networks seem to bolster religiosity across the board, the effect of how enmeshed people are in congregational friendships is stronger on religious behavior...

Long-term study analyzes social selection and peer influence in online environments New research funded by the National Science Foundation and published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by three Harvard University sociologists examines how we select our friends and the role that friendship plays in transmitting tastes and new ideas. Relationships are basic building blocks of society, and understanding who befriends whom can therefore provide insight into...

ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., Dec. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A very special group of girls provided an important message about friendship to shoppers looking for last minute holiday gifts at the Village of Rochester Hills on Sunday afternoon. Decked out in Santa hats, the flash mob conducted a dancing, sing-along led by rising local singing sensation, Marisa Nahas, who stopped shoppers in their tracks with her rendition of "All I Want for Christmas Is You." To view the video, click...

High-quality friendships in kindergarten may mean that boys will have fewer behavior problems and better social skills in first and third grades, said Nancy McElwain, a University of Illinois associate professor of human development and co-author of a study published in a recent issue of Infant and Child Development. "The findings for girls were different," said Jennifer Engle, lead author of the study. "Overall, teachers reported that girls in the first and third grade had good social...

Young girls have been viewed as far more savvy than boys at navigating the emotional pitfalls of friendships. But a new report shows that when friends let them down, girls are even more devastated than boys, researchers from Boston College and Duke University report in the journal Child Development. Researchers examined whether or not girls cope better than boys when a friend violates a core expectation of friendships. The study of fourth- and fifth-grade children found that these...

Girls may be sugar and spice, but "everything nice" takes a back seat when friends let them down. In a Duke University study out Tuesday, researchers found that pre-teen girls may not be any better at friendships than boys, despite previous research suggesting otherwise. The findings suggest that when more serious violations of a friendship occur, girls struggle just as much and, in some ways, even more than boys. The girls in this study were just as likely as boys to report that they...

The drinking habits of a romantic partner's friends are more likely to impact an adolescent's future drinking than are the behaviors of an adolescent's own friends or significant other, according to a new study in the October issue of the American Sociological Review. "Dating someone whose friends are big drinkers is more likely to cause an adolescent to engage in dangerous drinking behaviors than are the drinking habits of the adolescent's own friends or romantic partner," said Derek...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – The drinking habits of a romantic partner’s friend are more likely to impact an adolescent’s future than the behaviors of the adolescent’s own friends or significant other, according to this study. "Dating someone whose friends are big drinkers is more likely to cause an adolescent to engage in dangerous drinking behaviors than are the drinking habits of the adolescent's own friends or romantic partner," Derek Kreager, lead author of the study and an associate...