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Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms and the “Tightknittedness” of Friendship Groups
Author(s) -
Siennick Sonja E.,
Picon Mayra
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of research on adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.342
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1532-7795
pISSN - 1050-8392
DOI - 10.1111/jora.12484
Subject(s) - friendship , group cohesiveness , psychology , anxiety , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , peer group , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social anxiety , social psychology , psychiatry
Adolescents with depression have lower peer status overall, but tend to befriend each other. We examined the “tightknittedness” of their friendship groups by testing whether adolescent friendship groups’ average levels of or variability in internalizing symptoms predict group cohesiveness. We used four waves (9th–12th grades) of survey and social network data on 3,013 friendship groups from the PRO moting S chool‐Community‐University P artnerships to E nhance R esilience study. Friendship groups with higher average depressive symptoms were less cohesive; groups with higher average anxiety symptoms had greater reciprocity. Groups with greater variability in depressive symptoms had greater density; variability in anxiety symptoms was not consistently associated with cohesion. The friendship groups of depressed adolescents appear less cohesive than the “typical” adolescent friendship group.