Well-established psychological theories indicate that interpersonal relationships and emotional well-being are linked in fundamental ways (Coyne, 1976; Sullivan, 1953). Indeed, difficulties in close relationships can contribute to emotional adjustment problems, and emotional problems can adversely affect close relationships. Moreover, different close relationships are especially significant in terms of development and adjustment at different stages of the life span. The current review focuses on childhood and adolescence, developmental stages at which friendships are particularly important. This article presents the results of 16 meta-analyses including 589 unique effects from 233 studies that examine concurrent and longitudinal associations between youths’ friendship experiences (number of friends, positive friendship quality, negative friendship quality) and their emotional adjustment (depressive symptoms and loneliness). Studies examining these associations are mixed in regard to whether significant effects emerge. The current research synthesis provides more stable estimates of the effects. In fact, relatively small but significant concurrent and longitudinal associations emerged between the 3 indices of friendship with depressive symptoms and loneliness. The results also suggest that friendship experiences may be more closely linked with loneliness than depressive symptoms and that negative friendship quality may be related to friendship experiences more strongly than number of friends or positive friendship quality. Interestingly, some of the relations were found to be stronger for younger youth. Implications for prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.

Through stress generation, individuals’ own thoughts and behaviors can actually lead to increases in their experience of stress. Unfortunately, stress generation is especially common among individuals who are already suffering from elevated depressive symptoms. However, despite the acknowledgement that some individuals with depressive symptoms generate greater stress than others, few studies have identified specific factors that could exacerbate stress generation among individuals with depressive symptoms. The present study examines co-rumination as a factor that might exacerbate stress generation among adolescents with depressive symptoms using a short-term longitudinal design. Considering these processes among adolescents was critical given that many youth experience increases in depressive symptoms at this developmental stage and that co-rumination also becomes more common at adolescence. Participants were 628 adolescents (326 girls; 302 boys) who reported on their depressive symptoms, experiences of stress, and co-rumination with a best friend. Interpersonal stressors (peer and family stress) and non-interpersonal stressors (school and sports stress) were assessed. Consistent with past research, adolescents with depressive symptoms experienced greater interpersonal and non-interpersonal stress over time. Importantly, co-rumination interacted with both depressive symptoms and gender in predicting increases in peer stress. Depressive symptoms predicted the generation of peer stress only for girls who reported high levels of co-rumination with friends. Implications for protecting youth with depressive symptoms against stress generation are discussed.

Best friend expected emotion socialization responses were examined as a potential explanation for the link between social anxiety and youths’ friendship quality and dysfunctional emotion regulation (ER). A community sample of 202 young adolescents ([Formula: see text]age = 12.66; 52.5% girls, 75.7% White) within 101 same-sex, reciprocated best friend dyads completed measures of social anxiety, friendship quality, dysfunctional ER, and how they expected their friend to respond to their negative emotions. Social anxiety was related to lower expectations of support (i.e., reward, override) responses from friends, and for boys, to greater expectations of unsupportive (i.e., neglect, aggression) responses from friends. Lower expected support responses mediated the relation between social anxiety and socioemotional functioning for girls. For boys, greater expectations of unsupportive responses mediated the relation between social anxiety and socioemotional functioning. Findings indicate that social anxiety may disrupt emotion socialization processes within adolescent friendships with implications for youth socioemotional functioning.

Anger regulation among adolescents is important to investigate given theoretical and empirical support for its critical association with peer relationships. This study examined two aspects of anger regulation (i.e., inhibition, dysregulation) using self-report and peer-nominations and their associations with social acceptance among 163 Black and White adolescents (X = 13.87 years). We explored gender and ethnicity differences in anger regulation predicting peer acceptance. Self-reports and peer-nominations of anger regulation were significantly correlated. Within-gender ethnicity differences in anger regulation were found: White girls reported higher levels of anger inhibition than Black girls, and Black girls reported higher levels of anger dysregulation than White girls. For all adolescents, self-reports and nominations of anger inhibition were associated with higher levels of social

Despite the acknowledged importance of friendships in emotional development during adolescence, little research has empirically examined emotion socialization processes within friendships. Co‐rumination is one such process that may involve many emotion‐related skills due to its negative emotional focus and links to emotional distress. The current study examines whether adolescent friends’ emotional competencies (i.e., emotional awareness, emotion regulation) relate to co‐rumination. Adolescents (N = 192; 53% girls; Mage = 12.67; 76% European American, 17.7% African American) participated with a reciprocated same‐sex best friend. Adolescents reported on their own and their friends’ emotional competencies and participated in observed video‐taped problem discussion task that was coded for co‐rumination. Results indicated that indices of poor emotional competence related to greater co‐rumination for girls. For boys, stronger emotional competence related to greater co‐rumination. There were more significant links to co‐rumination from adolescents’ perceptions of their friends’ emotion regulation than self‐reports of their own emotion regulation. Results are discussed with a focus on implications for emotion socialization within the best friend context during early adolescence.