A new study spanning over two decades reveals that nurturing friendships may be a consistent way to protect against depressive symptoms throughout life, while romantic relationships present a more complicated picture. The findings indicate that being involved in close friendships was linked to fewer depressive symptoms from adolescence into middle age. However, when it came to romantic relationships, becoming romantically involved was actually associated with increased depressive symptoms, regardless of age.
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Research has consistently shown that social connections are important for mental well-being. Feeling connected and included in social groups is generally good for our minds, and one of the biggest mental health challenges related to social isolation is depression. People who experience depressive symptoms may feel persistent sadness, lose interest in daily activities, and struggle with feelings of worthlessness. Because of this link between social connection and mental health, it’s generally assumed that having various types of social relationships is beneficial.
However, not all relationships are the same. Friendships and romantic relationships, for example, can function very differently in our lives. Society often places a higher value on romantic partnerships, suggesting they bring more happiness and fulfillment than friendships. It’s true that the emotional bonds we have with romantic partners can be incredibly strong.
Yet, romantic relationships often come with higher expectations, like exclusivity and intense emotional investment. These high expectations can sometimes lead to negative experiences such as jealousy or conflict. Friendships, on the other hand, tend to have more flexible expectations. We can rely on different friends for different kinds of support, which might make them a more stable source of well-being.
Previous studies have hinted that friendships and romantic relationships might impact mental health in different ways. Some research suggests that romantic involvement, particularly in adolescence, can sometimes be linked to more depressive symptoms, although this link might weaken as people get older.
On the other hand, friendships have generally been shown to be linked to fewer depressive symptoms across different ages. However, many of these studies looked at romantic and friendship involvement separately. Additionally, older studies didn’t always distinguish between long-term differences between people (some people are just generally more likely to be in relationships) and changes within the same person over time (what happens when someone starts a new relationship). Furthermore, less was known about these connections as people move into middle age.
To address these gaps, study author Junwen Hu, a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University, analyzed long-term data to examine how both romantic and friendship involvement are related to depressive symptoms from adolescence into early middle age. He wanted to see if these relationships had different effects and if those effects changed over time.
“I noticed how people in my life, myself included, attach greater importance to romantic love than friendships. ‘Ditching’ friends for a romantic partner seems to be a very common phenomenon,” Hu explained. “Studies did find such a tendency with broader samples (than my own circles; see reviews by DePaulo). People seem to believe love brings greater joy than friends – but, is that true? That motivated me to compare associations between involvements in two relationship types and depressive symptoms across different life stages.”
Hu used data from a large, ongoing project called the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. This project has been following a group of people since their teenage years, collecting information about their lives at different points in time. For this particular study, he used data collected at four different time points: when the participants were around 15 years old, 16 years old, 28 years old, and 38 years old. These time points allowed them to track changes from adolescence to early middle age.
The study included 2,812 participants who had answered questions about their depressive symptoms at least three out of the four time points. At the beginning of the study, most participants were teenagers, with slightly more females than males. The majority identified as non-Hispanic and White, and came from diverse family backgrounds in terms of parental education and family structure. Over the course of the study, as expected, the percentage of participants who had ever been married increased significantly.
Hu looked at three main things: depressive symptoms, romantic involvement, and friendship involvement. Depressive symptoms were measured using a short questionnaire that asked participants how often they experienced feelings like depression and sadness in the past week. Romantic involvement was simply whether or not a person was in a romantic relationship at each time point. Friendship involvement was whether or not a person had at least one close friendship at each time point.
The results revealed some interesting differences between friendships and romantic relationships. As expected, friendship involvement was consistently linked to fewer depressive symptoms. Both people who generally had more close friendships across all time points and people who increased their friendship involvement over time reported fewer depressive symptoms. This beneficial effect of friendship seemed to be even stronger in adulthood compared to adolescence.
Romantic relationships showed a more complex pattern. While there was no link between someone’s general tendency to be in romantic relationships and their depressive symptoms overall, starting a new romantic relationship was consistently associated with an increase in depressive symptoms at all ages studied.
When looking at long-term trends, Hu found that being generally romantically involved was actually linked to fewer depressive symptoms in early middle age, but not in adolescence. In fact, in adolescence, being generally romantically involved was associated with more depressive symptoms. This suggests that the impact of romantic involvement changes as people age.
Hu was surprised to find “that being romantically involved seems to be associated with more depressive symptoms for quite a few different stages in people’s life,” Hu told PsyPost. “Love can be a trouble sometimes.”
The findings highlight the powerful and consistent benefits of close friendships for mental well-being across different life stages. While romantic relationships are often prioritized, this research suggests that maintaining strong friendships is a sound strategy for protecting against depressive symptoms.
“We just passed Valentine’s day last month. Folks may have different feelings about it. My paper suggests that, no matter you are, partnered or not, it might be a wise decision to not ditch your friends, for your own well-being – involvement with close friendships may be a stable buffer against depressive symptoms, whereas the role of romantic involvement appears a bit nuanced – sometimes it is associated with more depressive symptoms and sometimes fewer.”
Hu noted some limitations. Because of the way the data was collected and analyzed, the findings might not perfectly represent the entire population. The study also couldn’t determine whether friendships and romantic relationships directly cause changes in depressive symptoms, or if other factors are at play.
“It’s a correlational study essentially, though a longitudinal one, which helps a lot in distinguishing different ‘effects,” Hu explained. “However, there’s no true randomization and stimuli manipulation so we can’t make causal inferences based off the findings. ”
The long-term goals for this line of research is “to help people of different relationship statuses identify optimal social strategies to build satisfying networks and live a happy, fulfilling life,” Hu said. “I sincerely hope individuals can flourish, no matter if they are single or partnered. In my research program, I am working towards a bigger goal to help individuals be socially integrated and included with various supportive communication strategies, which involve messages, networks, and technologies.”
The study, “A Longitudinal Analysis of How Romantic and Friendship Involvement are Associated with Depressive Symptoms,” was published February 20, 2025.
