Friendships and Social Circles | Exploring Ways People Form Supportive Groups | 72

Friendships and social circles describe the patterns through which people establish, maintain, and interpret voluntary interpersonal connections over time. This menu defines the conceptual domain concerned with how such connections emerge, stabilize, change, and dissolve within varying social contexts. It addresses the structural, relational, and symbolic dimensions that shape supportive group formation, including shared identity, mutual recognition, trust, norms, boundaries, and continuity. Attention is given to the ways individual agency and collective processes interact to produce networks of belonging that influence well-being and social integration. The scope remains analytical and descriptive, focusing on common principles rather than prescriptive behavior. Across the topic chapters, the material maintains coherence by examining friendships and social circles as dynamic systems shaped by context, history, and interaction, allowing consistent understanding across cultural, institutional, and life-stage settings.