The Avoidance of Strong Ties
研究发现，美国成年人在面对个人困难时，回避亲密朋友和家人的可能性与向他们倾诉的可能性相当，且这种回避通常是被动发生的，取决于特定成员和话题的组合。
Theorists have proposed that a value of close friends and family—strong ties—is the ability to confide in them when facing difficult issues. But close relationships are complicated, and recent studies report that people sometimes avoid strong ties when facing personal issues. How common is such avoidance? The question speaks to theoretical debates over the nature of “closeness” and practical concerns over social isolation. We develop an approach and test it on new, nationally representative data. We find that, when facing personal difficulties, adult Americans are as likely to avoid as to talk to close friends and family. Most avoidance is not actively reflected on but passively enacted, and, contrary to common belief, is not limited to either specific network members or particular topics, depending instead on the conjunction of member and topic. Building on Simmel, we propose that a theory of the fundamental need to conceal and reveal helps account for the findings. We suggest that there is no more empirical justification for labeling strong ties as those who are trusted than for labeling them as those who are avoided. In turn, isolation might be less a matter of having no intimates than of having repeatedly to avoid them.