CHANGE AND CONSISTENCY IN SOCIAL-PARTICIPATION DURING EARLY ADULTHOOD

This article reports a longitudinal study of the social interaction pa tterns of college students and adults. Adults (N = 113) from 26 to 31 years old who had participated in similar studies in college kept deta iled records of social activity for 2 weeks. Three hypotheses were sup ported. First, from college to adulthood, opposite-sex socializing gre w, whereas same-sex, mixed-sex, and group interactions decreased. Seco nd, intimacy increased in adulthood, whereas satisfaction did not. Con trary to theories that focus on the formation of primary intimate rela tionships in early adulthood, intimacy increased in all interaction ca tegories. Sex differences in the development of intimacy were also not ed. Third, correlations revealed marked consistency over time in sever al variables. Implications of these findings for social development du ring early adulthood were examined.