Friendships are a mental health resource for adolescents. Their availability and strength have been shown to predict lower levels of depression, higher self-esteem, and higher life satisfaction. They can also alleviate the stress that often leads to negative mental health outcomes. However, studies examining the stress process rarely consider the fact that social networks like friendship groups are not a static resource that effects all people the same way. Rather, demographic characteristics of both the individual and their friends could change the role of friendship networks within the stress process. In this thesis, I investigate the importance of one such demographic characteristic: race. Racial and ethnic diversity continues to grow in the United States, contributing to an increase interracial and interethnic friendships. It is important to understand what impact racial difference might have on the stress process. In addition to using Leonard Peralin's stress process model to understand these potential effects, I draw upon Gordon Allport’s Contact theory to inform my analysis. Contact Theory attempts to explain why and how intergroup contact leads to changes in racial attitudes. Increases in positive racial attitudes may lower unique stressors often experienced my racial minorities such as racial prejudice and acculturation. This research project provides a starting point for deeper analyses examining how contact theory and the stress process function together. I ask if racially diverse friendship networks affect adolescent mental well being (as measured by mental health and self-esteem) and if the race of the respondent moderate the effects of racial diversity in friendship networks on mental well-being. To answer these questions, I perform secondary data analysis of survey responses from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. I use public-use, cross-sectional data of adolescents from Wave 1 ('94-'95). Linear regression models predicting adolescent mental health found that racial difference in friendship networks is negatively associated with mental health for white adolescents. For Asian respondents, linear regression models found that racial difference in friendship networks was positively associated with both mental health and self-esteem. Results on Hispanic, Black, and "Other" race adolescents were non-significant. These results suggest that racial difference in friendship networks have varying associations on mental well-being that depend on the race of the adolescent. White adolescents with more diverse friend groups may experience increased stress resulting from an increased awareness of the racial prejudice that affects their friend's lives. Asian adolescents may benefit from more diverse friend groups because it allows them to find a "sense of belonging" in environments where there is less opportunity to have same-race friendship networks. They also might face less discrimination from different-race peers, allowing the social support benefits of a racially different friendship networks to outweigh any increases in perceived discrimination from peers. The results indicate that future studies should continue studying how demographic characteristics influence the stress process, including the role of social networks. Policies should aim to provide educational resources teaching adolescents how to handle experiences of prejudice and to create positive points of contact for different race peers. Future studies should assess the validity of these results by performing longitudinal analyses that can provide information on how racially different friendship networks buffer specific stressors and discover if the relationships found in this analysis change over time.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 22, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Amanda J. Rose. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (DPsych in Psychology (Counselling Psychology)) -- School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2003. / Submitted for the partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate in Psychology (Counselling Psychology), School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-200).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-64).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-135). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1998. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-91).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Cheryl Buehler; submitted to the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 3, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-165).

This thesis focuses on the dynamic interplay between race and social ties. Even though in sociological studies, race is usually treated as a cause of social segregation, we argue that this is a two-way process. Our approach distinguishes between racial self-identifications and racial perceptions. In the first part of the thesis, we focus on the joint effects of these aspects on the prevalence and emergence of social ties in secondary school communities. The second part investigates social effects on racial perceptions. For the analyses, we take a social networks approach, estimating exponential random graph and stochastic actor-oriented models. First, we take a look at the state of racial segregation in friendships and negative ties within communities, and we investigate the dynamic processes that have led to the described state. We also take endogenous network mechanisms into account. We provide evidence that given an initial state of segregation, reciprocity and clustering can maintain the relative infrequency of cross-race friendships in the group, even without (additional) same-race preference. Further, we find that negative ties describe interracial segregation better than friendships: majority students tend to dislike their minority peers, but no such tendencies were found for friendships. Second, we find that minority students tend to overperceive their friends' similarity to themselves in terms of race. Moreover, there is evidence for social influence: classmates tend to accept each other's, especially their friends', opinions about their peer's race. Altogether, both empirical parts of the thesis suggest a hierarchical relationship between the majority and the minority groups: besides majority students' tendency to exclude their minority peers, those who try befriending majorities - but get rejected by them - are more likely to be perceived as minorities. There are also indications of some minority students showing outgroup preference, while others seem to compete against the majority group. This can contribute to the observed emergence of enmity between minority students.

Quantitative studies dominate early adolescence research, a field which also lacks an understanding of communication behaviors between early adolescents. This study uses the qualitative methods of participant observation and informal interviews to observe conversations between girls in a junior high lunch room. Friendship characteristics and group socialization are discussed as they emerged from the field data. First, friendship hierarchies (best friend, close friend, and friend) may be adult-imposed structures. Hierarchies are not prominent in the minds of friends as they relate to each other in daily conversation. Second, friendship groups serve to socialize early adolescent girls.

No description available.