Relationship rules, adaptive strategies, and loneliness in later life

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 14: Family, Relationships, and the Life Course

Abstract

Loneliness is the discrepancy between desired and actual quality and quantity of relationships. But how do people construct the social rules of social relationships, and how does this shape behavior? This paper builds a conceptual model whereby loneliness is shaped by cognitive frames surrounding terms of relationships, and behavior enabling social exchange and maintenance of ties. Interviews with 67 older adults highlights cognitive frames as shaped by equity and fairness. Utilising this diffuse framework, individuals initiate, remain in, or dissolve relationships, shaping loneliness through relationship absence or presence, and determine its quality. Individuals rationalise discrepancy between cognitive frames they draw on and downplay actual exchange to achieve what they deem ‘fair’. They do this by 1) rationalising the terms of social exchange, 2) contextualizing duration of relationships, and 3) re-labelling ties with varying sets of expectations. This paper highlights breakdown of this exchange as a source of variation in loneliness. Rather than viewing loneliness as an individual issue, a relational approach contributes by laying out the social processes leading to the absence of relationships, as well as how it shapes relationship quality, demonstrating loneliness as shaped by social norms framing terms of relationships, values and resource inequality enabling or constricting exchange, and individual agency.

Author

• Jack Lam, University of Queensland