The introduction to this volume advances its collective research agenda of renewing and advancing critical approaches to friendship and modern personal life. It outlines what a critical approach to friendship entails and delineates three central themes underlying debates in the social science literature on friendship: ideals, choice, and contexts. It both consolidates these debates and offers new directions for advancing them through a series of key interventions in critical approaches to friendship. These interventions are divided into the core thematic sections of the book: (1) critical intimacies, differences, and ruptures; (2) critical sociabilities beyond the private; and (3) critical relational junctures. The introduction also elucidates the thematic cohesion of the volume, emphasizing how the chapters are united by a commitment to ethnographic methods, interpretive theoretical approaches, and critical theory.

Rising dog ownership increases demand for dog-friendly public spaces. This need produces new kinds of interactions and relationships, and new sources of conflict and cooperation between park users. This chapter examines how the human–dog relationship mediates and modifies interpersonal relationship development and human friendship practices in public space. Drawing on 150+ hours of participant observation at dog parks, our analysis demonstrates the importance of public space to supporting “simple and single-stranded friendships” (Pahl & Spencer 2004). Through identifiable social patterns and rituals, the forced interactional work of dog-facilitated human–human interaction between regular users creates opportunities for meaningful relationship development, despite (and sometimes because of) incidences of dog-facilitated conflict also present in these spaces.

The notion that people with psychopathy traits do not respond positively to treatment efforts may sound intuitive. If people are inflexible, uncaring towards others, manipulative, and just generally difficult to get along with, it follows that treatment might be ineffective. However, what is intuitive and what is accurate do not always overlap perfectly. The analyses in this chapter contribute to a growing body of literature indicating that individuals with psychopathy traits can change and respond in expected ways to intervention strategies (Bernstein et al., 2021; Wong et al., 2015). The analyses in this chapter identified that people with psychopathy traits who spent more time incarcerated, thereby increasing access to rehabilitative services, experienced a subsequent decline in offending. It is possible that these findings reflect the efficacy of the risk-need-responsivity model, wherein intensive intervention strategies reduce criminal behaviour for high-risk persons. Treatment modalities for people with psychopathy traits are discussed.

Friendship has its public life in urban spaces. Drawing on recent social constructionist approaches to the domestication of space in urban studies, and based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the outdoor spaces of a mall in Beijing, China, this chapter explores how ordinary visitors domesticate the mall in their everyday lives. Focusing on the practice of friendship in three small groups, I trace how the mall’s spaces are (1) appropriated as “playgrounds” by after-school children, (2) negotiated as “informal childcare workshops” by guardians, and (3) claimed as “senior centers” by elderly visitors. I argue that the mall is not merely a backdrop for friendship, but that friendship practices constitute the mall beyond its default setting as merely a space for consumption. This chapter contributes to scholarship on modern friendship beyond the private realm and advocates for a more embracing conceptualization of friendship in urban spaces.

This chapter revisits “critical friendships,” exploring how moments of sociopolitical and health crises shape and challenge relational bonds. Drawing on UK-based studies of personal responses to Brexit and dating app use during COVID-19, we demonstrate that theoretical assumptions about friendship’s egalitarian and inherently “good” nature often fail to capture the complexities of lived experience. The Brexit study revealed how political differences strained friendships, yet participants often prioritized shared history over political alignment. The COVID-19 study found that while apps facilitated “suffused” relationships during lockdown, these relationships were ultimately disappointingly short-lived. Using Berlant’s “cruel optimism,” we demonstrate how the illusion of the ideal “pure” friendship creates an inevitable disappointment when such relationships prove unachievable. Yet despite these disappointments, the “goods” of friendship can still outweigh the “bads” of “the times” in the potential for new suffused relational forms, however fleeting, as well as in the effort expended to sustain friendships.

The main focus of this chapter is on evaluating the reliability and validity of the PCL:YV among a cohort of 535 youth from the ISVYOS. Reliability indicators included internal reliability and interrater reliability. Overall, there was strong support for the reliability of the PCL:YV among ISVYOS participants. Validity indicators included construct validity and convergent validity. In terms of construct validity, in line with prior research, a series of confirmatory factor analyses found support for both a hierarchical three-factor model (i.e., Interpersonal, Affective, and Lifestyle Factors). Although there was also support for a four-factor model that includes an Antisocial factor, this model did not offer an improvement over a three-factor model. Item response theory and psychopathology network modeling identified interpersonal and affective traits as most prototypical of the overarching psychopathy construct (e.g., impression management, grandiosity, pathological lying, manipulation, lack of remorse, shallow affect, callous/lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility). In terms of convergent validity, only moderate overlap was observed between the PCL:YV and two other measures of psychopathy.

The psychopathy literature on predictive validity tends to focus on a very narrow set of outcomes, namely, criminal behaviour. In this chapter, I examine the relationship between psychopathy and different social and health outcomes. In particular, I investigate whether psychopathy traits in adolescence reduce the likelihood of forming positive social bonds and engaging in social roles in adulthood. I also examine social outcomes in prison by focusing on the relationship between psychopathy traits in adulthood and criminogenic social networks in adulthood, including conflict in prison and elevated levels of criminal social capital. Finally, I also examine the relationship between psychopathy traits in adolescence and adult substance use issues and early mortality. In general, PCL:YV test scores increased the likelihood of negative social and health outcomes in adulthood. The findings highlight the potentially complex relationship between psychopathy, social/health outcomes, and continued offending. Framing psychopathy as a public health issue and not just a criminal legal system issue may be helpful for developing more proactive approaches to addressing psychopathy traits.