Socialization and enjoying downtime with friends is an activity we regularly participate in but often take for granted. "Hanging out" may be something most people don't ponder, but socializing across our lifetimes is a key part of the human experience, and it plays an important role in our lives at the individual level as well as in social interactions within larger numbers of people: groups of friends, communities, entire countries or cultures, and even global society.

A new title in Greenwood's The Psychology of Everyday Life series, Hanging Out: The Psychology of...