The present research examined how residential mobility affects the extent to which people compartmentalize friendship activities (i.e., selecting different friends for different activities) and the role of social support concerns in the relationship between mobility and friendship compartmentalization. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people who had moved frequently while growing up or who were primed to think about moving compartmentalized their friendships more if they valued social support in friendship. Study 3 showed that this effect was driven by concerns over social support availability. The findings suggest that residential mobility changes friendship structure in ways that satisfy individuals’ expectations of friendship.
AdamsG. (2005). The cultural grounding of personal relationships: Enemyship in North American and West African Worlds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 948–968. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.948
2.
AdamsG.PlautV. C. (2003). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Friendship in North American and West African worlds. Personal Relationships, 10, 333–347. doi:10.1111/1475-6811.00053
3.
AdamsG.SalterP. S.PickettK. M.KurtişT.PhillipsN. L. (2010). Behavior as mind in context: A cultural psychology analysis of ‘paranoid’ suspicion in West African worlds. In MesquitaB.BarrettL. F.SmithE. R. (Eds.), The mind in context (pp. 277–306). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
4.
BarghJ. A.ChartrandT. L. (2000). The mind in the middle: A practical guide to priming and automaticity research. In ReisH. T.JuddC. M. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 253–285). New York: Cambridge University Press.
5.
BaumeisterR. F.LearyM. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
6.
BrettJ. M. (1982). Job transfer and well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 450–463. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.67.4.450
7.
ClarkM. S.OulletteR.PowellM. C.MilbergS. (1987). Recipient’s mood, relationship type, and helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 94–103. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.1.94
8.
CollinsN. L.FeeneyB. C. (2000). A safe haven: An attachment theory perspective on support seeking and caregiving in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1053–1073.
9.
EidseF.SichelN. (2004). Unrooted childhoods: Memoirs of growing up global. Boston, MA: Intercultural Press.
10.
FehrB. (1996). Friendship processes. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
11.
FehrB. (2004). Intimacy expectations in same-sex friendships: A prototype interaction-pattern model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 265–284.
12.
FrenchD. C.BaeA.PidadaS.LeeO. (2006). Friendships of Indonesian, South Korean, and U.S. college students. Personal Relationships, 13, 69–81. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00105.x
13.
KimH. S.ShermanD. K.KoD.TaylorS. E. (2006). Pursuit of comfort and pursuit of harmony: Culture, relationships, and social support seeking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1595–1607. doi:10.1177/0146167206291991
14.
KruglanskiA. W.ShahJ. Y.FishbachA.FriedmanR.ChunW. Y.Sleeth-KepplerD. (2002). A theory of goal systems. In ZannaM. P. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 331–378). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
15.
LewinK. (1936/1997). Resolving social conflicts and field theory in social science (pp. 15–34). WashingtonDC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10269-000
16.
LinvilleP. W. (1987). Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 663–676.
17.
LunJ.OishiS.TenneyE. (2012). Residential mobility moderates preferences for egalitarian versus loyal helpers. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 291–297. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.09.002
18.
MagdolL.BesselD. R. (2003). Social capital, social currency, and portable assets: The impact of residential mobility on exchanges of social support. Personal Relationships, 10, 149–170. doi:10.1111/1475-6811.00043
19.
MonsourM. (1992). Meanings of intimacy in cross- and same-sex friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9, 277–295.
20.
OishiS. (2010). The psychology of residential mobility: Implications for the self, social relationships, and well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 5–21. doi:10.1177/1745691609356781
21.
OishiS.GrahamJ. (2010). Social ecology: Lost and found in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 356–377. doi:10.1177/1745691610374588
22.
OishiS.MiaoF. F.KooM.KislingJ.RatliffK. A. (2012). Residential mobility breeds familiarity seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 149–162.
23.
ReisH. T.CollinsW. A.BerscheidE. (2000). The relationship context of human behavior and development. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 844–872. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.6.844
24.
RosenthalR.RosnowR. L. (1984). Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
25.
SchugJ.YukiM.HorikawaH.TakemuraK. (2009). Similarity attraction and actually selecting similar others: How cross-societal differences in relational mobility affect interpersonal similarity in Japan and the USA. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12, 95–103. doi:10.1111/ajsp.2009.12.issue-210.1111/j.1467-839X.2009.01277.x
26.
SchugJ.YukiM.MadduxW. (2010). Relational mobility explains between- and within-culture differences in self-disclosure to close friends. Psychological Science, 21, 1471–1478. doi:10.1177/0956797610382786
27.
SemmerN. K.ElferingA.JacobshagenN.PerrotT.BeehrT.BoosN. (2008). The emotional meaning of instrumental social support. International Journal of Stress Management, 15, 235–251. doi:10.1037/1072-5245.15.3.235
28.
ShowersC. J. (1992). Compartmentalization of positive and negative self-knowledge: Keeping bad apples out of the bunch. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 1036–1049.
29.
ShroutP. E.HermanC. M.BolgerN. (2006). The costs and benefits of practical and emotional support on adjustment: A daily diary study of couples experiencing acute stress. Personal Relationships, 13, 115–143. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00108.x
30.
SnyderM.GangestadS.SimpsonJ. (1983). Choosing friends as activity partners: The role of self-monitoring. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1061–1072. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.5.1061
31.
StarkerJ. E. (1990). Psychosocial aspects of geographic relocation: The development of a new social network. American Journal of Health Promotion, 5, 52–57.
32.
TriandisH. C.BontempoR.VillarealM. J.AsaiM.LuccaN. (1988). Individualism and collectivism: Cross-cultural perspectives on self-ingroup relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 323–338. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.2.323
33.
WheelerL.ReisH. T.BondM. H. (1989). Collectivism-individualism in everyday social life: The middle kingdom and the melting pot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 79–86. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.57.1.79
34.
YamagishiT. (2011). Micro-macro dynamics of the cultural construction of reality: A niche construction approach to culture. In GelfandM. J.ChiuC.-Y.HongY.-Y. (Eds.), Advances in culture and psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 251–308). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
35.
YamagishiT.HashimotoH.SchugJ. (2008). Preferences versus strategies as explanations for culture-specific behavior. Psychological Science, 19, 579–584. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02126.x
36.
ZimmermannP. (2004). Attachment representations and characteristics of friendship relations during adolescence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88, 83–101.
