“The framily plan”: Characteristics of ties described as both “friend” and “family” in personal networks

Abstract

Despite the growing potential for multiplexity in our complex social world, social network methodology often does not adequately capture this phenomenon. Most commonly in research on egocentric social networks, when respondent designate a tie as both family member and friend, the tendency is to default to “family” prior to aggregation for analysis, potentially ignoring important and meaningful variation. As a result, relatively little is known about multiplexity in personal social networks, and particularly about individuals who are simultaneously kin and friends. To address this gap, we assess the rate of occurrence of kinship/friendship multiplexity, and examine characteristics of alters nominated as friends and kin in comparison to those with unidimensional functionality. We find that this kind of multiplexity is fairly common–comprising about one-fifth of kinship ties and one-fourth of friendship ties. Moreover, cross–listed alters are significantly different from those characterized in one function, serving in greater capacity in terms of provision of support, frequency of contact, closeness, and as resources for discussion of important matters. Our findings underscore the critical need to appropriately classify multiplex kinship/friendship ties to avoid making incorrect inferences about support processes and their effects on outcomes across different relationship types.

What's in a Family? Family Conceptualizations of Flemish College‐Aged Students (1997–2018)

“…This is roughly the same in 1997 and 2018, but we do note a decrease in the willingness to consider friends as family members in 2018. This suggests that the idea of framily situations, in which friends are perceived to be family, is not at play here, adding to the recent literature on this subject (Bush et al, 2017).…”

“…Recent evidence of changing perceptions about family can be found in studies on the boundaries between families and other types of relational ties. Bushet al (2017) have found that blurring boundaries between friends and families is increasingly common, which points to a need for more nuanced classifications of families. They stated that “ties characterized as both friends and family members may function more like one or the other type of relationship, introducing complexity and unexplained variation … between roles” (p. 96).…”

“…They stated that “ties characterized as both friends and family members may function more like one or the other type of relationship, introducing complexity and unexplained variation … between roles” (p. 96). These multiplex relations, containing a mixture of kinship and friendship, where friends are increasingly considered to be family members, are called framilies (Bush et al, 2017).…”

“…These additional items involved family forms with remarried parents, co‐parenting, grandparents, deceased family members, pets, and friends of parents or children (Matthijs & Van den Troost, 1998). The choice of fictional family forms added was based on recent literature that suggested that these concepts are increasingly important in perceptions about family (Bush et al, 2017; Guthrie, Marshall, Hendrick, Hendrick, & Logue, 2018). A final note concerns the terminology.…”

Cohort Difference in Age-Related Trajectories in Network Size in Old Age: Are Networks Expanding?

“…Second, the social role relations employed here might not have been exhausted enough to capture the nuanced interplay between network size and roles. There is growing acknowledgment that social relations can be multiplex (Bush, Walker, & Perry, 2017). Third, future studies could include exchanged social support, also studied for kin and nonkin ties separately.…”