Characterizing Emotional Support Development: From Adolescent Best Friendships to Young Adult Romantic Relationships

Costello, Meghan; Allen, Joseph P.; Womack, Sean R.; Loeb, Emily L.; Stern, Jessica; Pettit, Corey

doi:10.1111/jora.12809

J of Research on Adolesc

2022

DOI: 10.1111/jora.12809

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Characterizing Emotional Support Development: From Adolescent Best Friendships to Young Adult Romantic Relationships

Meghan Costello

Joseph P. Allen

Sean R. Womack

et al.

Abstract: This study examined development of emotional support competence within close friendships across adolescence. A sample of 184 adolescents (53% girls, 47% boys; 58% White, 29% Black, 14% other identity groups) participated in seven waves of multimethod assessments with their best friends and romantic partners from age 13 to 24. Latent change score models identified coupled predictions over time from emotional support competence to increasing friendship quality and decreasing support received from friends. Friend… Show more

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Cited by 9 publications

References 62 publications

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The Independent Associations of Attachment Representations to Parents and Depressive Symptoms with Friendships and Romantic Relationships in Young Adults

Fadli,

Moberly,

Psychogiou

2024

J Adult Dev

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The formation of friendships and romantic relationships represents an important developmental task in young adulthood. However, little is known about the potential factors associated with the quality of these interpersonal relationships. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine whether attachment representations to parents and depressive symptoms were independently associated with the quality of friendships and romantic relationships. Using the Prolific platform, 196 young adults (M age = 22.01 years, SD = 1.62) participated in the study. Each participant reported their attachment representations to mother and father and depressive symptoms through the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment and Patient Health Questionnaire 8, respectively. Positive (companionship, intimate disclosure, emotional support, approval, and satisfaction) and negative (conflict, criticism, pressure, exclusion, and dominance) dimensions of relationship quality with a close friend and a romantic partner were assessed with the Network of Relationships Inventory-Relationship Quality Version. Results showed that secure attachment representations to mother (but not father) were significantly associated with increased emotional support, approval, and satisfaction in romantic relationships, even after controlling for gender and depressive symptoms. Increased depressive symptoms were significantly associated with more conflict, criticism, and pressure in friendships, above and beyond gender and attachment representations to parents. There was a significant interaction between gender and depressive symptoms in predicting friendship quality. Men with increased depressive symptoms reported more conflict and dominance. No significant effects were found for women. These findings underscore the importance of secure attachment representations to mother in predicting healthy romantic relationships and depressive symptoms in predicting problematic friendships, especially for men.

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The Independent Associations of Attachment Representations to Parents and Depressive Symptoms with Friendships and Romantic Relationships in Young Adults

Fadli,

Moberly,

Psychogiou

2024

J Adult Dev

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Friend Emotional Support and Dynamics of Adolescent Socioemotional Problems

Wang,

Xu,

et al. 2024

J. Youth Adolescence

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Pathways from adolescent close friendship struggles to adult negative affectivity

Allen,

Costello,

Hellwig

et al. 2024

Dev Psychopathol

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This 19-year prospective study applied a social development lens to the challenge of identifying long-term predictors of adult negative affectivity. A diverse community sample of 169 individuals was repeatedly assessed from age 13 to age 32 using self-, parent-, and peer-reports. As hypothesized, lack of competence establishing and maintaining close friendships in adolescence had a substantial long-term predictive relation to negative affectivity at ages 27–32, even after accounting for prior depressive, anxious, and externalizing symptoms. Predictions also remained robust after accounting for concurrent levels of depressive symptoms, indicating that findings were not simply an artifact of previously established links between relationship quality and depressive symptoms. Predictions also emerged from poor peer relationships within young adulthood to future relative increases in negative affectivity by ages 27–32. Implications for early identification of risk as well as for potential preventive interventions are discussed.

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Characterizing Emotional Support Development: From Adolescent Best Friendships to Young Adult Romantic Relationships

Cited by 9 publications

References 62 publications

The Independent Associations of Attachment Representations to Parents and Depressive Symptoms with Friendships and Romantic Relationships in Young Adults

The Independent Associations of Attachment Representations to Parents and Depressive Symptoms with Friendships and Romantic Relationships in Young Adults

Friend Emotional Support and Dynamics of Adolescent Socioemotional Problems

Pathways from adolescent close friendship struggles to adult negative affectivity

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