ABSTRACT
Wolfgang Stroebe and his colleagues, in a study of widows and widowers, found that while supportive friends effectively ameliorated the distress associated with social isolation, they did little to reduce the loneliness associated with marital loss (Stroebe, Stroebe, Abakoumkin, & Schut, 1996). The inference Stroebe and his colleagues drew was that the emotional partnership of a marriage, on the one hand, and the support of friends and kin, on the other, made independent contributions to well-being.
