This broad-ranging volume examines how friends give meaning to our lives. Each phase of the friendship process is illustrated with empirical research. The result is a conceptual framework that illuminates the fascinating components involved in making friends, becoming close and keeping friends, and in friendships deteriorating and dissolving.

"In this marvelous book, Beverly Fehr presents a comprehensive and richly detailed examination of what scholars have learned about the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of friendships. . . . Overall, a model of careful scholarship, clear writing, and good sense. For anyone studying friendships, there is no better place to start. This is perhaps the best book of its kind." --Choice Friends are an integral part of our lives--they sometimes replace family relationships and often form the basis for romantic relationships. Friendship Processes, new in the Sage Series on Close Relationships, examines exactly how friends give meaning to our lives and why we rely so heavily on them. Broad in its coverage, the book is process oriented and research based with each phase of the friendship process documented by empirical research. The result is a conceptual framework that illuminates the fascinating components of how we make friends, how we become close, how we maintain friends, and how friendships deteriorate and dissolve. Author Beverley Fehr equips the reader with valuable knowledge about the formations and continuations of the intriguing personal relationship called friendship. Friendship Processes also illustrates well the fact that, as a field of study, close relationships is maturing rapidly. Promising to be the definitive study of the subject for many years to come, this book will be of particular interest to professionals, academics, and students of social psychology, sociology, communication, family studies, and social work as well as any interested reader who is anxious to deepen his or her understanding and appreciation of a very engaging topic.

A topic relevant to everyone - friendship - is explored in this volume, the first in the SAGE Series on Close Relationships. It presents a thoughtful statement about what we know, and have yet to learn, concerning adults' friendships.The authors discuss state-of-the-art research on the interplay between social structure, individual disposition and dynamic processes of friendship, and findings on both similarities and differences across adult lifecourse stages. They provide a theoretical framework, incorporating both sociological and psychological perspectives. Using this framework, they offer a new and integrative model of friendship to synthesize research, identify gaps in the literature, scrutinize methods used and produce a map for future research.

Edited by Mahzad Hojjat and Anne Moyer, The Psychology of Friendship provides a comprehensive overview of the research on these important relationships, which represent one of humanity's closest connections. This book provides a wealth of information on both the beneficial and detrimental aspects of this important bond in everyone's lives.

The phenomenon of friendship is universal. Friends, after all, are the family we choose. But what makes these bonds not just pleasant but essential, and how do they affect our bodies and our minds? In Friendship, science journalist Lydia Denworth takes us in search of the biological, psychological, and evolutionary foundations of this important bond. She finds that the human capacity for friendship is as old as humanity itself, when tribes of people on the African savanna grew large enough for individuals to seek meaningful connection with those outside their immediate families. Lydia meets scientists at the frontiers of brain and genetics research, and discovers that friendship is reflected in our brain waves, our genomes, and our cardiovascular and immune systems; its opposite, loneliness, can kill. With insight and warmth, Lydia weaves past and present, biology and neuroscience, to show how our bodies and minds are designed for friendship, and how this is changing in the age of social media. Blending compelling science, storytelling, and a grand evolutionary perspective, she delineates the essential role that cooperation and companionship play in creating human (and non-human) societies. Friendship illuminates the vital aspects of friendship, both visible and invisible, and offers a refreshingly optimistic vision of human nature. It is a clarion call for putting positive relationships at the centre of our lives.

A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls. Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again. An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

Written by Lisa-Jo Baker of the (in)courage women's community, Never Unfriended, is a step-by-step guide to friendships you can trust with personal stories and practical tips to help you make the friends, and be the friend, that lasts.