Emotional Closeness and Physical Distance between Friends: Implications for Elderly Women Living in Age-Segregated and Age-Integrated Settings

Abstract

Abstract:The author discusses the need for a better theoretical understanding of friendship in order for its role in the lives of elderly people to be understood. The applicability to friendship of Simmel's approach to the study of social relationships is outlined. From this perspective, types of friendship are determined by the physical distance separating friends and the emotional closeness bringing them together. The data consist of seventy in-depth interviews of senior, unmarried women in a middle-class community bordering on Chicago. Qualitative data are reported to support quantitative analyses. There were positive relationships between emotional closeness and physical distance, duration and emotional closeness, and frequency of interaction and proximity. The author describes the implications for elderly women of the tendency for their close, old friends to be physically separated from them and their neighbors to be casual friends, but constant companions. The author discusses the effects of the age-density of residential context and life history on the types of friends the women had.

Widowhood and mortality among the elderly: The modifying role of neighborhood concentration of widowed individuals

“…Neighborhoods, we postulate, are likely to serve as active milieu for facilitating social and economic ties for the elderly widowed that tend to become important to counter social marginalization and isolation particularly soon after bereavement (Adams, 1985a(Adams, , 1985b. Prior evidence suggests the importance of neighbors in late life (Lamme, Dykstra, & van Groenou, 1996).…”

Friendships between women: a critical review

“…Retsinas and Garrity's (1985) and Adams' (1986) work suggested that the crucial factor was the salience of the dissonant characteristic. For example, in the former study in a nursing-home setting similarity in terms of level of handicap and degree of care was far more important in influencing friendship formation than similarity in socio-economic characteristics.…”

“…At any rate, Strain and Chappell (1982) found that the single, separated and divorced were equally likely to identify friends as confidants, while the still-married were least likely to do so, the widowed being in between (1982: 493). Adams (1986) noted that segregated housing had a particularly positive effect on the situation of the never-married. They were unlikely to have emotionally close local friends other than in an age-segregated housing context, where the setting rendered differences in marital status irrelevant.…”

“…The argument concerning agesegregated as opposed to age-integrated housing (and indeed the concept of sheltered housing itself) is partly related to this. Adams (1986) suggested, on the basis of her study, that In summary, age-segregated housing seems to foster the development of emotionally close, local friendships, because its residents have things in common, are aware of the similarities in their situations, are motivated to make new friends and have the opportunity for frequent interaction with potential friends. (Adams, 1986: 73-4) Interestingly, Adams (1986) makes no reference to feelings of selfdenigration arising from being surrounded by 'a crowd of old women'.…”

“…Furthermore, various studies have identified considerable complexities within this overall pattern. Thus, for example, Adams (1986) found that the existence of friends who were not very close and who were not living in the local area was associated with lower levels of positive affect (although it did not affect the level of negative affect). Ward (1979) found that the importance of friendships in contributing to an overall level of happiness amongst the aged varied depending on their marital status: contact with friends being a better predictor for the never-married than the married, widowed or divorced.…”