Friendships across time and space: the effects of a life transition on friendships

While friendship over distance was once rare, numerous new technological options have created the opportunity to maintain friendships while not being geographically proximate. However, research examining the friendship dynamics of long-distance friends is rare, and the effects of communication and personality on long-distance friendship maintenance have not been fully explored. The present study represents a longitudinal examination of the effects of communication and personality variables on maintaining a best friendship from high-school over participants’ first year of college, as well as the effects of this maintenance on the development of a new social network. In terms of communication quantity, results indicated that text messaging frequency was the most consistently associated with friendship maintenance over distance. Instant messages (IMs) and communication via social networking sites (SNSs) were also associated with multiple relational outcomes. In regard to communication quality, higher quality of communication was associated with positive relational outcomes for all mediums except for e-mail and face-to-face contact. Agreeableness and Extraversion were also strongly related to positive friendship outcomes, although did not affect the trajectory of relational outcomes over time. Positive associations were also observed between maintaining a high-school best friend and both social and psychological outcomes. Possible future directions and limitations are also discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Weiner, Aaron

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hannum, James W.
• Rounds, James
• Karahalios, Karrie G.
• Robinson-Cimpian, Joseph P.

• Long distance friendship
• friendship
• personality
• individual differences
• communication
• computer-mediated communication
• friendship maintenance

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2013, Aaron Weiner

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/45647

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/45647