Friendship stability in adolescence is associated with ventral striatum responses to vicarious rewards

An important task for adolescents is to form and maintain friendships. In this three-wave biannual study, we used a longitudinal neuroscience perspective to examine the dynamics of friendship stability. Relative to childhood and adulthood, adolescence is marked by elevated ventral striatum activity when gaining self-serving rewards. Using a sample of participants between the ages of eight and twenty-eight, we tested age-related changes in ventral striatum response to gaining for stable (n = 48) versus unstable best friends (n = 75) (and self). In participants with stable friendships, we observed a quadratic developmental trajectory of ventral striatum responses to winning versus losing rewards for friends, whereas participants with unstable best friends showed no age-related changes. Ventral striatum activity in response to winning versus losing for friends further varied with friendship closeness for participants with unstable friendships. We suggest that these findings may reflect changing social motivations related to formation and maintenance of friendships across adolescence.

Exploring qualities present in current versus dissolved cross-group friendships

In general, cross-group friendships are less stable than same-group friendships. What conditions are present in currently existing versus dissolved cross-group friendships? In order to examine qualities that may influence cross-group friendship stability we compared current and dissolved friendships, including cross-group friendships. Cross-group friendships exist in various group domains, some more easily categorizable than others. That is, sometimes it is easy to tell that a relationship is cross-group (e.g., cross-race), and other times this is less clear (e.g., cross-socio-economic status). Thus, we compared current and dissolved friendships across both a more and a less easily categorizable group domain. In this study, participants reported on their current and dissolved friendships, and we found that, overall, friendship influencing qualities such as closeness, similarity, and social network integration (i.e., becoming friends with the friends of one’s own friends) were present to a greater extent in current versus dissolved friendships. This was the case for both cross-group and same-group friendships. These qualities may influence cross-group friendship stability.

Internalizing Symptoms and Friendship Stability: Longitudinal Actor-Partner Effects in Early Adolescent Best Friend Dyads

The present study investigated the stability of friendship nominations over the course of a school year as a function of early adolescents’ and their classroom best friends’ internalizing symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, and somatization). Sample consisted of 156 early adolescents (57.1% female; [Formula: see text] age = 12.62; SD = 0.62) involved in 78 same-sex best friendship dyads. We assessed best friendship (classroom) nominations at beginning (T1) and end (T2) of the school year. Results of longitudinal analyses performed with the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model indicated adolescents’ and their classroom best friends’ depressive symptoms predicted lower stability of best friendships over time, whereas best friends’ somatization emerged as a predictor of higher friendship stability. In addition, positive dyadic friendship quality predicted greater stability over time. These findings highlight the importance of employing a dyadic framework when examining the role of internalizing symptoms in friendship stability.

Social Network Implications of Normative School Transitions in Non-Urban School Districts

This article expands research on normative school transitions (NSTs) from elementary to middle school or middle to high school by examining the extent to which they disrupt structures of friendship networks. Social network analysis is used to quantify aspects of connectedness likely relevant to student experiences of social support. Data were drawn from 25 communities followed from sixth to ninth grades. Variability in timing of NSTs permitted multi-level longitudinal models to disentangle developmental effects from transition effects. Results indicated that friendship networks were most interconnected in smaller schools and among older students. Beyond these effects, transitions from a single feeder school to a single higher level school were not associated with changes in friendship patterns. Transitions from multiple feeder schools to a single higher level school were associated with diminished friendship stability, more loosely connected friendship networks, increased social distance between students, and friendship segregation between students who formerly attended different schools.