By definition, they live close by and in an emergency, can make the difference between life and death. They are a potential source of protection, can help make the neighborhood a safer place to live, and neighbors can help each other out with shopping, transportation and other daily needs. Neighboring can have other longer-term benefits as well. By providing a network of acquaintances, neighbors can be an important source of social contact which can help enhance general psychological well-being and perhaps even physical health. Also, people who have wider circle of acquaintances tend to cope better under stress, says Wethington.
Neighbors can help widen one s circle.
With the prediction that, in the near future, millions of women are going to be living by themselves in dispersed neighborhoods with little access to family and vital services, many researchers are predicting a crisis for them. We need to find ways to change people s attitudes about seeking help from others besides family members and how using neighbors more could be an important resource, says Wethington. To learn more about neighboring and how to enhance it, Wethington is studying to what extent people neighbor and how much social support neighboring actually provides. She also wants to learn what factors promote neighborly activities and what can inhibit them, how neighboring impacts mental and physical health, and how people can learn to foster their neighboring relationships and become more neighborly. To glean some insight into these issues, Wethington supervised a cadre of mature undergraduate students in their thirties and forties who conducted one hour interviews with 95 older and 35 middle-aged persons in eight different neighborhoods in Cortland and Ithaca, New York.