Poster #225 - Compensatory effects of parents and peers? A daily diary study of social support in adolescence

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

During adolescence, as youth place increasing value on their interpersonal relationships, perceiving high levels of social support may be critical in promoting their sense of social connection and happiness (Meehan, Durlak, & Bryant, 1993). Theoretical perspectives suggest that both friends and parents function as significant, but unique, sources of support during this developmental period (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985; Gauze, Bukowski, Aquan-Assee, & Sippola, 1996). Despite such recognition that both friend and parent support predict adolescents’ social satisfaction and emotional well-being, research on these two relationship domains have largely developed separately. Additionally, little is known about how links between social support and adolescent well-being play out in everyday life. The overarching goal of this study was to investigate how both inter- and intra-individual differences in perceived support across two developmentally salient relationships (friends and parents) relate to adolescents’ emotional and social well-being (happiness and social connectedness). In particular, we test the hypothesis that feeling supported by parents can compensate for feeling unsupported by friends on a day-to-day and global basis.

For 14 days, an ethnically diverse sample of adolescents (N=119; 52% boys; Mage=15.36, SD=.78) completed daily diary reports on their perceived support from friends and parents as well as their happiness and social connectedness. Analyses also controlled for participant sex, autoregressive effects, and both daily and average hours spent with friends and parents. There was significant intra- and inter-individual variability in friend and parent support across the diary period (ICCfriendsupport=.30, ICCparentsupport=.41), suggesting that support fluctuated both on a day-to-day basis and between individuals. Multilevel multivariate models showed that, at the between-person level, parent support served a compensatory function. As seen in Figure 1, lower levels of average friend support predicted worse well-being for youth experiencing low, but not high, levels of parent support across the two weeks. At the within-person level, daily friend and parent support were each uniquely related to well-being, but there were no interactive effects. Finally, there was a significant cross-level interaction between daily friend support and average parent support. As seen in Figure 2, although daily friend support was related to significant increases in well-being at all levels of parent support, the strength of these associations varied as a function as parent support. Lower levels of daily friend support predicted the greatest decrements in well-being for youth who generally felt unsupported by their parents. High levels of overall parent support, on the other hand, could partially make up for the absence of friend support on any given day, providing additional evidence of a compensatory process.

Taken together, results suggest that friends and parents serve important independent and interactive functions in adolescents’ daily lives. Support from friends and parents was highly variable within individuals, suggesting that even adolescents who generally feel supported by close others may nevertheless experience fluctuations in such support from day to day. Moreover, the current results highlight that having supportive parent relationships may be particularly important for maintaining the well-being of adolescents who feel unsupported by friends both in general and on a day-to-day basis.

Authors

• Hannah L Schacter, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Gayla Margolin, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author