Friendship

During the transition into adolescence, peer relations become increasingly important and peer influence grows, commensurate with changes in the child’s social world. Previous findings indicate that youth with relatively fewer reciprocated friendships are particularly susceptible to influence in dyadic settings, raising the possibility that friendedness may also heighten susceptibility to group influence. The current study examined the hypothesis that a lack of reciprocated friendships increases susceptibility to academic and behavioral peer group norms because youth with few friends are eager to increase affiliative opportunities and minimize the risk of being perceived as social misfits.
Participants were 419 (204 girls, 215 boys) middle school (5th-7th; M=12.01 years old) Lithuanian students in 23 classes. Students identified up to five friends from a class roster. Adolescents were classified into two groups based on friendedness: few (i.e., 0-1; n=169) over several (i.e., 2 or more; n=250) reciprocated friendships. Self-reports of conduct problems, school burnout, and school grades were collected twice during an academic year (M=12.3 weeks apart). Academic achievement, disruptiveness, physical aggression, and popularity were assessed through peer nominations. Status-based norms were calculated as within-classroom correlations between peer reports of popularity and each target outcome. Descriptive norms (means and medians) were calculated as classroom averages and medians of each target outcome. Multilevel models examined whether friendedness moderated associations between norms (status-based and descriptive) and changes in target outcomes.

Friendships convey developmental advantages. Adolescents without friends suffer from a host of difficulties. Much more is known about which friendships are likely to be stable over time, than about maternal contributions to friendship stability. To this end, the current study examines characteristics of mother-child relationship quality (i.e., child reported social support, negativity and relationship importance) and maternal parenting practices (i.e., child-reported behavioral control and psychological control) that predict the dissolution of children’s friendships in a sample of primary school (ages 10 to 11) and middle school (ages 11 to 14) students attending seven public schools in Lithuania. A total of 574 participants (290 female, 284 male) completed identical surveys at six time points across two consecutive school years. Peer nominations provided an index of peer status (i.e., acceptance or liking and rejection or disliking), which were also included as predictors in order to control the contribution of peer status. Friendships were defined as dyads in which both partners nominated each other as friends. Dissolved Friendships were defined as dyads that were reciprocated at Time 1 but one or both partners failed to nominate the other as a friend as a subsequent time point.
Discrete time survival analyses were conducted to predict friendship dissolution from maternal parenting practices variables, mother-child relationship quality variables, peer status variables, and demographic variables (sex, dyad sex, nutrition, household structure, relationship rank). Two sets of analyses were conducted. The individual model explored the degree to which individual scores on each variable predicted friendship dissolution. The dyadic model the degree to which dyadic differences (i.e., the absolute difference between friend scores) on each variable predicted friendship dissolution.

School success is associated with parent- and peer-relationships. To study the connection between these alliances and school success, 30 African-American and 30 European-American 6th graders were given the Relationship Closeness Inventory, Network of Relationships Inventory, Self-Perception Profile, Revised Class Play, and Youth Self-Report. A parent and best friend also completed surveys. Results show parent and peer support relates to the social competence of youth. Father support is associated with female aggressive-disruptive behavior, and best friend support is associated with sensitive-isolated behavior in boys. African-American parents do more social events with their children than European-American parents do with their children. European-Americans and males have higher socioeconomic status than African-Americans and females.