Consequential strangers

Abstract: Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter ... But Really Do. Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman. New York: Norton. 2009. 298 pp. ISBN 9780393067033. $28.95 cloth. Consequential Strangers is a well-selected title. It is catchy and paradoxical: We don't usually expect strangers to be significant in our lives. It also signals the volume's thesis, namely that peripheral network members are important. Who are consequential strangers and why are they key in our lives? Blau and Fingerman see relationships as forming a continuum of intimacy and contact. "Consequential strangers occupy the broad region between complete strangers on the far left and intimates - our strongest connections - on the far right' ' (p. 6). Consequential strangers (CSs) are people about whom you know something. They are "resources," "people who help you get through the day and make life more interesting" (pp. 8-9). Many CS relationships develop overtime and involve repeated interaction but are restricted to a particular place or activity. Thus, they often have a compartmentalized function in our lives, and the ties our CSs have with one another may be low. Scholars have distinguished between intimate versus nonintimate, core versus peripheral, primary versus secondary, and strong versus weak relationships. Consequential strangers lean toward the weaker, less intense side of such distinctions. They typically come and go in our lives; we aren't highly committed to them, and they are replaceable. In everyday parlance, we might refer to CSs by their role (e.g., my hairdresser) or by such terms as acquaintance, pal, or mate. Consequential strangers are consequential, but they aren't really total strangers in the way that concept is commonly used. This volume is replete with specific illustrations of the importance of CSs. Three general reasons include the following: 1. Consequential strangers constitute a large, growing portion of our network ties: humans rarely report more than 10 intimate relationships, but they can often list hundreds of peripheral network members. Since the mid20th century, family size has declined but modern technology (e.g., travel, communications technology) has precipitated a surge in peripheral relations. 2. We spend a lot of time with CSs (e.g., "People who work full-time ... are likely to spend more time with acquaintances than with their closest relations" [p. 15]). 3. Relationships with CSs play key functions in our lives. For example, they help integrate us into society, provide information, help us define our identities, provide emergency support, assist with family tasks, offer diversity and novelty, and so on. Consequential Strangers has seven chapters. In Chapter 1, the authors describe what they mean by the concept of consequential strangers. They note that scholars and laypersons have largely ignored such relations and argue that readers need to expand their relationship vocabulary to better acknowledge such people in their lives. The authors also contend that we live in a society of continual CS connections. Chapter 2 focuses on social networks. It introduces Antonucci' s idea of three circles of convoys varying in closeness to us in our lives and covers such network concepts as density. The latter part of the chapter discusses how having diverse networks can contribute to effective leadership and innovation. Chapter 3 gets into the functions that CSs play in our lives, looking at how CSs broaden our sense of self, link us to information, help us to get resources, add novelty, and so on. Chapter 4 focuses on well-being. The authors acknowledge that intimate ties are important but argue that peripheral ties add to our health: the healthiest individuals have both types of connections. Chapter 5 is titled "Being Places" in reference to its examination of the settings in which CSs first develop and flourish. Chapter 6 covers the downside of CSs, how they can be irritating and detrimental. …

Abstract: In Part I of the book, I explored the cultural significance of disclosure, captured in Les Back’s (2007, p.7) claim that ours is a culture in which ‘there is a clamour to be heard, to narrate and gain attention’. Within the social sciences, though, the focus has been on talk without, curiously, much interest in who is doing the listening. Most of the discussion in the last chapter focused on our general orientations towards emotions talk, that is, on our beliefs and feelings about talking about our emotions. In this chapter, I focus on whom we are actually talking to. While holding on to a sense of the diverse nature of our relationships (Simpson, 2006) is important in order to avoid reinforcing a ‘hierarchy of intimacy’ (Budgeon, 2006), it is the case that ‘the listeners’ tend to be strongly patterned. In other words, while random acts of listening, like kindness, do happen, and we cannot ignore the significance at times of encounters with consequential strangers (Blau and Fingerman, 2009), some people are much more practised in the art of listening than others. In focusing on who is doing the listening, the chapter seeks to balance a preoccupation with the cultural imperative of disclosure with an understanding of the social networks, contexts and relationships within which disclosure is rendered possible (or not). In relation to both formal and informal support, emotions talk is the product of both choice and constraint, preference and availability — whether involving family and friends who are able and willing to listen, or local provision of talking therapies.