Emotional Support Development in Adolescent Friendships: A Transactional, Iterative Social Learning Process

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

In adolescence, teens shift toward peers as primary sources of emotional support (Allen & Land, 1999). Peer relationships may serve a unique social learning function, with teens acting as both “support seeker” and “support provider” with peers across time (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). Additionally, experiencing a positive exchange with a peer predicts more positive engagement with that peer in the future (Stotsky, Bowker, & Etkin, 2019). As teens repeatedly engage in supportive interactions, they may encounter increasingly rewarding opportunities to solicit and provide support with their friends. This may cascade into future functioning; teens with more supportive friends endorse greater psychological adjustment, romantic relationship satisfaction, and secure attachment (Haydon et al., 2012). In sum, this literature suggests that social development within adolescent dyads may play out as part of an iterative, self-sustaining give-and-take between peers that builds competence, security, and expectations about support over time. This study examined the reciprocal and parallel development of friendship quality, emotional support received, and competence in giving emotional support across adolescence.

Methods:
A socio-economically diverse community sample of 184 individuals was assessed six times over a five-year period: from age 13 to age 18.
Emotional support was assessed annually using observational interaction data in which teens and their best friends completed a coded, 6-minute supportive behavior task (Allen et al., 2001).
Each year in adolescence, participants completed the Inventory of Attachment to Peers about their friendship quality. Peers completed the Interpersonal Competencies Questionnaire about participants’ emotional support competence.
In adulthood, partners completed the Network of Relationships Inventory about the amount of support they got from participants. Participants reported on their attachment security using the Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire.

Results:
OpenMx (Boker et al., 2020) was used to perform a nested model comparison of a cross-lagged autoregressive model and an autoregressive model alone. The data was best described by a partially cross-lagged model with predictions to relationship security and support received in adult relationship (diffLL = 16.948; diffdf = 6, p < .01; see Figure 1).
FIML was used to handle missing data. Across the study there was 94% retention. Dropped out participants did not differ from retained participants on demographic variables or baseline characteristics.

Discussion:
Results suggest that attachment, interpersonal skills, and support reception may all be developmentally interrelated. Furthermore, the extent to which adolescents develop the ability to engage in supportive interactions with peers at 18 appears to significantly predict how securely attached and supportive their romantic relationships are at age 24. In sum, this strengthens the extant assertion that peer relationships serve vital developmental functions and act as a developmentally key learning context. The iterative nature of this social learning process highlights a crucial concern for intervention work: some teens may be set on a harmful trajectory, while others are poised to reap the benefits of their high-functioning friendships. Potential long-term implications of this process, as well as limitations of the study and future directions for research will be discussed.

Authors

• Meghan A Costello, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Corey Pettit, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica A Stern, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emily Loeb, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica Kansky, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joseph P Allen, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author