Friendship and Happiness ― Across the Life-span and Cultures

This is the first book that explicitly focuses on the role of friendship experiences in happiness. It addresses historical, theoretical and measurement issues in the study of friendship and happiness (e.g., when did the study of friendship and happiness start? Why friends are important for happiness?).

In order to achieve a balanced evaluation of this area as a whole, the book concludes with a critical appraisal of what is known about the role of friendship in happiness and provides important directions for future research. Experts from different parts of the world provide in-depth authoritative reviews on the relationship between different types of friendship experiences (e.g., friendship quantity, quality) and happiness in different age groups and cultures.

An ideal resource for researchers and students of positive psychology, this rich, clear, and up-to-date book serves as an important reference for academicians in related fields of psychology such as cross-cultural, developmental and social.

Meliksah Demir received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan, USA) in 2007. He is currently an associate professor at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, Arizona, USA) since then. Since his graduate school years, Demir has been conducting research on friendship and happiness in different age groups (e.g., Demir & Urberg, 2004; Demir & Weitekamp, 2007; Demir, 2010). His current research focuses on delineating the processes and mechanisms responsible for the friendship-happiness link (e.g., Demir & Ozdemir, 2010). Specifically, Meliksah Demir is testing different theoretical models that could explain why friendship is related to happiness. He also conducts cross-cultural studies to examine whether the role of friendship in happiness is similar in different cultures.