Friendships have been shown to be an important resource for older persons with respect both to social support and mental health. Research on friendship in old age has been cross-sectional and the sources of these friends has not been examined. Using a life-course perspective, this research is designed to contribute to knowledge about friendships and acquaintanceships from adolescence to old age, and to gauge the effects of fiftieth high school reunions on the friendship networks of the now chronologically old class members. The 541 members of the 1934 graduation class of a high school located in a then predominantly middle-class suburb will be the research population. The research will be conducted in conjunction with their 50th high school class reunion, thereby greatly expediting the process of locating respondents. As of this writing, 308 members (57 per cent) of the class have been located (not including the 76 who are known to have died) and these persons will serve as the respondents for the research. In addition, information about all class members' participation in high school is available in the high school annual. Each member located will be asked to complete a questionnaire approximately 10 months after the reunion in which strength of ties both in high school and at the present time with each classmate are identified. These data will be used to determine the extent to which high school classmates are part of one another's personal networks and their importance in old age. In addition, respondents will be asked questions about their current friendships and social support networks in order to assess the significance of long-term relationships in them. One year after the initial collection of data, the class members will be contacted again and asked to complete a questionnaire. This follow-up questionnaire is intended to discover whether high school reunions in old age promote the renewal of adolescent relationships which have been lost in the intervening years and whether any effects discovered affect only those who attended the reunion or also affect those who only had access to the addresses of classmates.
| Labouvie-Vief, G; DeVoe, M; Bulka, D (1989) Speaking about feelings: conceptions of emotion across the life span. Psychol Aging 4:425-37 |
| Labouvie-Vief, G; Hakim-Larson, J; Hobart, C J (1987) Age, ego level, and the life-span development of coping and defense processes. Psychol Aging 2:286-93 |
