Socioemotional Behavior at the End of College Life

This study examined daily patterns of social interaction before the anticipated social departure marked by the end of residential college life. Sixty-six college students, 19 of whom faced social and/or geographical relocation associated with college graduation, kept daily accounts of their social activities for 21 consecutive days. Compared with students not facing a social departure, graduating seniors reported greater emotional involvement with close friends relative to acquaintances. Seniors did not differ from other students in their relative balance of close friends and acquaintances within each day or in amount of time spent with each type of social partner per day. These findings suggest that people's construals of future social opportunities - or lack thereof—influence their emotional investments in social contact, and support Carstensen's socioemotional selectivity theory.