Social network typologies of Hong Kong older adults and associations with psychological well-being

We investigated if robust social network typologies found in Western samples were replicated in a sample of 990 Hong Kong Chinese older adults, stratified by age, gender and marital status. We extended previous research by including negative interactions with network members as a criterion for clustering. Thus, structural characteristics, functional support exchanges and negative interactions were included as criterion variables, among others. Previous studies consistently reported one kind of family network, but we found two family network types, one characterized by a moderate degree of negative interactions, the other low negative interactions. Previous studies also consistently reported that friend-focused networks that are supportive to be happier than family-focused networks, but we found that this was the case only if the family networks were characterized by a fair degree of negative interactions. in addition, we also replicated previous findings concerning restricted networks (lowest well-being) and the diverse networks (highest well-being).