Friendship is a voluntary, reciprocal, informal, and unconstrained close relationship between two unique peers that endures over time, facilitates the socioemotional goals of both parties, yields shared benefits, and is typically characterized by intimacy, emotional warmth, support, and trust (Wrzus et al., 2017; Farmer and Kali, 2018). Individuals seek a variety of features and specific provisions in their friendships that describe their friendship quality (Demir and Weitekamp, 2007). According to Mendelson and Aboud (1999), the following six functions are fulfilled in high-quality friendships: stimulating companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, emotional security, and self-validation. Stimulating companionship involves doing enjoyable things together, while emotional security includes comfort and reassurance provision in stressful situations that cause fear, anxiety, or anger. Also, reliable alliance refers to knowing that one can count on one’s friend, and help refers to support, assistance, and guidance provision. Finally, self-validation is defined as encouragement to maintain a positive self-image, and intimacy refers to self-disclosure (Fehr and Harasymchuk, 2018).

Friends are among the most significant interpersonal bonds in life. They largely fulfill the fundamental human need for belonging and social interaction (Hojjat et al., 2017). The development of a friendship is valuable throughout adulthood, as it significantly contributes to individuals’ positive adaptation to new situations and adversity (Buote et al., 2007). A recent systematic review indicated that several adult friendship variables are related to wellbeing and its components, especially friendship quality, number of friends, attempts to maintain friendship, socializing with friends, and support from friends (Pezirkianidis et al., 2023). Among these variables, friendship quality has been found to facilitate increased positive emotions, self-worth, happiness, social competence, accomplishments, meaning in life, and psychological adjustment (e.g., Demir and Weitekamp, 2007; Koestner et al., 2012; Akin and Akin, 2015; Carmichael et al., 2015; Secor et al., 2017). However, most studies that focus on the associations between friendship quality and wellbeing indices are based on emerging adult and university student samples (Pezirkianidis et al., 2023).

Wellbeing is based on five pillars according to Seligman’s (2011) multidimensional conceptualization. The experience of positive emotions represents the emotional nature of wellbeing and broadens the repertoire of actions and thoughts (Fredrickson, 2004). Engagement refers to increased interest and absorption in everyday tasks and activities (Kern et al., 2015). Positive relationships represent the social facet of wellbeing; high-quality and satisfying relationships lead to perceived support from others, which predicts greater physical and psychological wellbeing (Chandoevwit and Thampanishvong, 2016; Mitskidou et al., 2021). Meaning reflects the belief that life is worth living and includes feelings of connection to a greater entity (Kern et al., 2015). Finally, accomplishment refers to the achievement of ordinary goals and boosts individuals’ life satisfaction and psychological wellbeing (Nohria et al., 2008).

Savoring is the tendency to focus on and enjoy past, present, and future positive experiences so that the pleasure they bring is intensified (Bryant and Veroff, 2007). There are behavioral savoring strategies, such as physical manifestation of positive emotions and sharing positive experiences with others, and cognitive savoring strategies, for example, congratulating oneself, getting fully absorbed in the moment, filling intentionally one’s memory with diverse aspects of a positive event or counting blessings (Bryant and Veroff, 2007; Quoidbach et al., 2010).

Research suggests that individuals who use savoring techniques report greater wellbeing, more frequent experiences of positive emotions, stronger connections with others, deeper engagement in activities, and enhanced purpose in life (Gable et al., 2004; King et al., 2006; Bryant and Veroff, 2007). Savoring facilitates the experiencing of positive emotions and thus acts as a driving force for all the beneficial effects of positivity (Bryant and Veroff, 2007; Kiken et al., 2017). Based on the Broaden-and-Build Theory, experiencing positive emotions undoes the unpleasant effects of negative emotions, broadens the repertoire of thoughts and actions, and builds time-resistant resources, which in turn enhance life satisfaction and longevity, increase the possibility of experiencing future positive emotions and strengthen resilience to adversity (Fredrickson, 2004; Tugade and Fredrickson, 2004; Fredrickson and Branigan, 2005). In addition, research findings show that high-savoring individuals experience more positive events in their daily lives or perceive them as such (Hurley and Kwon, 2013).

Savoring also applies to interpersonal relationships. Savoring close relationships enhances the sense of unity and belonging by creating a special bond between its members, which itself is an object of savoring (Bryant and Veroff, 2007). Additionally, increased trait savoring has been found to facilitate willingness to form new relationships, such as friendships (Harrison, 2014). To add more, recent studies focus on the effects of relational savoring, i.e., the process of savoring past, present, or future experiences or moments of connectedness with significant others (Froidevaux et al., 2023), on wellbeing indices. Experimental studies on relational savoring have shown its effects on both relational and personal wellbeing indices. For example, partners in long-distance relationships who savor positive relational experiences feel more positive and less negative emotions (Borelli et al., 2015), while parents of infants and toddlers who participated in a relational savoring intervention felt more satisfied with the relationship with their children (Burkhart et al., 2015). Moreover, relational savoring has been found to moderate the relationship between psychological distress and relationship satisfaction of military partners who are non-deployed (Froidevaux et al., 2023). Additionally, it has been found to reduce the negative affect and attachment anxiety of youth in residential treatment (Wang et al., 2021). Taking everything into account, savoring in interpersonal relationships facilitates greater attachment security, more capacity to understand the mental states of the self and others, increases in positivity and meaning derived from relationships, and greater relationship quality and satisfaction (Borelli et al., 2020). The aforementioned studies highlight the contribution of savoring in parent–child and romantic relationships but there are no findings regarding the association between savoring and positive experiences in friendships.

The present study aims to investigate the relationship between adult friendship quality indicators, savoring, and wellbeing using a lifespan Greek adult sample. This study is considered to add to the existing literature, since the association between adult friendship quality, savoring, and wellbeing has never been examined in the Greek cultural context, while the relationship between savoring and friendship quality remains understudied. Moreover, the relationship between adult friendship quality and wellbeing has been mainly examined in young adults and not in a lifespan adult sample.

The research hypotheses are the following:

The sample consisted of 771 Greek adults (M_age = 38.35 years, SD = 13.33, age range 18–73). Of them, 58.9% were women, 47.1% were married, 64.2% lived in Attica, Greece, and 71.6% were employed, while 32.5% were high school graduates and 45.6% were university graduates (see Table 1).

Data was collected during October–December 2019. Students from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece recruited, after receiving training, adults of their social milieu. Before providing their consent, participants were informed about the aims of the study and the anonymity of their responses. No external incentives or compensation were provided to them. The data was recorded on answer sheets, scanned using the Remark Office OMR (Gaikwad, 2015), and analyzed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences 21 (Hinton et al., 2014). Cases with missing data in the main measures were excluded (N = 35) after confirming randomness, i.e., participants that answered the highest, lowest, or the same value in all items.

The present study was a single timepoint, self-report survey that assessed only constructs of positive valence based on Likert-type scales. Thus, participants’ responses could have been due to several response biases, e.g., social desirability, positive response bias, or loyalty to friends. Furthermore, the snowball sampling technique resulted in recruiting individuals from a restricted network of individuals. Moreover, several sociodemographic variables, such as marital status, educational level, or parenthood, were not considered. Additionally, data were only collected from one member of the friendship, therefore we only have a one-sided viewpoint of the relationship. Finally, possible differences between same- or cross-gender friendships were not examined in this study.

Future studies could focus on the specific dimensions of wellbeing or draw on different multidimensional conceptualizations of wellbeing, e.g., Keyes (2005) model, to explain its associations with positive friendships and savoring. Furthermore, qualitative or mixed-method studies, data collection from both friendship members, and longitudinal research designs are needed for an in-depth exploration of this issue, especially in the Greek context, where close relationships with both friends and family members are reported. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and three consecutive long-term lockdowns have largely impacted human relationships in Greece and have created the need for further research on the role of friendships and savoring in wellbeing and on the mechanisms underlying these associations. Also, the design, implementation, and evaluation of new interventions focusing on positive friendship development across adulthood is an important aim of future research. Finally, the present study could be replicated in other cultural contexts; cross-cultural comparisons would shed light on how positive friendship experiences and savoring practices explain wellbeing levels in different contexts.

The findings of the present study uniquely contribute to the understanding of the relationships between close friendship quality and wellbeing during adulthood and not exclusively among emerging adults. Additionally, this study is one of the first attempts to understand the relationships between friendship dimensions and savoring practices. These contributions become even more significant since this was the first study in Greece that underlines the importance of both savoring and friendship quality to Greek adult’s wellbeing, whose mental health seems to be strongly connected to their social satisfaction (Malikiosi-Loizos and Anderson, 1999).

Moreover, the findings of this study have important practical implications. Positive education practices to cultivate savoring and positive friendships could be incorporated in several settings. Mental health professionals, coaches, social workers, and educators in school, work, or clinical settings could design and apply interventions to enhance people’s skills in savoring positive experiences and building positive friendships. This is expected to increase people’s wellbeing, social competence, psychological resilience, sense of meaning in life, and positive emotions.