Examining context shifts’ effect on relationship trajectories in friendships using Turning Point Theory

Drawing from Turning Point Theory, this study explores whether context shifts, which are changes in the location where a friendship is enacted, affect relationship trajectories and friendship closeness. Study 1A ( N = 120) experimentally manipulated invitations for context shifts in college friendships to test their effects on perceived relationship trajectory, social attraction, and closeness. Study 1B ( N = 112) replicated the results of Study 1A with working adults. Both studies’ results suggest that context-variable shifts lead to a change in perceived relationship trajectory but did not influence social attraction or closeness. In Study 2, first-year students ( N = 98) reported on turning points in their friendships twice over 9 weeks. Friendships reporting context-variable shifts as a turning point were associated with higher friendship closeness than relationships that had no turning points and similar closeness as friendships that reported self-disclosure as a turning point.

Close Campus Friendships and College Student Success

Friendships are widely considered to be an essential part of life in college and beyond. The existing literature on college friendships, academic achievement, and student attrition is mixed, which may occur as a result of varying ways of defining friendship. This study adds to an understanding of these dynamics by examining both the number of close campus friends as well as the emotional connection students have with these friends within a large, multi-institutional sample. Multilevel analyses found that both of these attributes of campus friendships are positively and significantly related to six-year graduation rate, whereas only the number of close campus friends significantly predicts college grade point average.

Tracing "Friendsickness" During the First Year of College Through Journal Writing: A Qualitative Study

The purpose of this qualitative study was to consider “friendsickness” as experienced by 96 entering college students. As defined here, friendsickness is a challenge new students experience when they leave their established network of friends and begin college. Journal entries written by new students in first-year seminars were examined and analyzed using a phenomenological framework. Results showed that many first-semester students enrolled in firstyear seminars delayed making new friends at college, whereas second semester students in first-year seminars embraced their new college friendships. The second finding was that journal writing appeared to help students explore and understand their issue of friendsickness.

Sir Frank Watson Dyson, 1868 - 1939

Frank Watson Dyson was the son of Rev. Watson Dyson, a Baptist minister. He was born on 8 January 1868 at Ashby, but he always regarded himself as a Yorkshireman since most of his youth was spent in Hahfax. He was the eldest of a family of seven. Early distinction gained in the Cambridge Local Examination led to his being sent to Bradford Grammar School. Among his school contemporaries there were many who afterwards became distinguished, including Sir William Rothenstein, John Coates and Cutcliffe Hyne. Dyson always took a great pride in his old school. Loyalty to old friends and old associations was strongly embedded in his nature; and he took an especial delight in keeping up school and college friendships. He was a very regular attender at the Old Bradfordians dinners. Similarly he was deeply attached to his college, Trinity, and had a great fund of reminiscences of Trinity worthies of the old generation. He rarely missed the Trinity Commemoration dinner, to which he was invited as Past Fellow. I think it was for him the great day of the year; and he would remain at “Jackson’s Squash” which succeeded the dinner, far into the night as long as he could persuade any of his friends to stay.