Closeness, loneliness, support: Core ties and significant ties in personal communities

Past research has introduced further distinctions within the strong ties that form our personal communities. This work aimed at a comparison between core and significant ties in terms of their emotional closeness to ego, the social provisions that are exchanged, the relationship maintenance behaviours reported, and ego's loneliness. Measures for all these variables were assessed in a survey study. Evidence for a trade-off between the number of ties and their level of intimacy was obtained such that having more core ties was associated with lower levels of intimacy. Distinct signatures for friends from both sets of ties emerged for friendship maintenance behaviours and social provisions exchanged. Further, social and emotional loneliness were differentially related to the number and the intimacy of core and significant ties.

► Core and significant ties are differentially related to emotional closeness, exchange of social provisions, friendship maintenance behaviours, and loneliness.
► The number of core ties is negatively associated with average closeness while the number of significant ties shows more complex associations.
► Core friends are best differentiated from significant friends on dimensions that characterise long-lasting, deep-running friendships.
► Social loneliness is negatively associated with the number of significant ties, but shows no relationship with the number of core ties.
► Emotional loneliness is positively associated with the number of core ties, which can be explained by reduced levels of intimacy for larger sets of core ties.