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Thesis advisor: James R. Mahalik / Objectives. Adolescent friendships play a particularly critical role in one’s physical, social, and emotional development. Difficult, inequitable, friendships in late adolescence and young adulthood are particularly concerning as the experience one has in these formative friendships can negatively impact one’s physical and psychological development (Ehrlich, Hoyt, Sumner, McDade, & Adam, 2015; Engels & Bogt, 2001; Hartup, 1996; Parker, Rubin, Erath, Wojslawowicz, & Buskirk, 2006). The goal of this dissertation was to examine one particular type of problematic and inequitable peer relationship experienced in late adolescence and young adulthood, colloquially termed a “high-maintenance” friendship. Specifically, this study examined the association between high-maintenance friendships and social emotional adjustment in late adolescents and young adults in a college setting and had four overarching purposes. First, it provided a preliminary definition for the construct of high-maintenance friendships among late adolescents and young adults in a college setting. Second, it explored late adolescents’ and young adults’ beliefs around why they have stayed in friendships that were high-maintenance. Third, the study applied the principles of interdependence theory to high-maintenance friendships and examined whether individual-level factors such as self-esteem, behavioral expectations, attachment style, loneliness, and gender were linked to the likelihood that one will stay in a high-maintenance friendship. Fourth, the study explored whether the degree to which a high-maintenance friendship impacted one’s emotional well-being (i.e., making them upset) was associated with one’s likelihood of staying in the high-maintenance friendship. Method. Participants were 256 late adolescents and young adults from a mid-size, elite, private university in the Northeastern United States (Mage = 19.09 years; 53.1% female). A mixed method, two-phase, exploratory, sequential design was implemented across two phases. The first phase implemented a qualitative content analysis in an effort to identify, develop, and define the construct high-maintenance friendships. The second phase of the study utilized a series of hierarchical linear regression analyses to explore the relationships between individual level characteristics and one’s likelihood of staying in high-maintenance friendships. Results. Qualitative analyses yielded a three-factor model, suggesting that late adolescents and young adults conceptualize the most salient characteristics of a high-maintenance friendship as: 1. one sidedness, 2. requiring substantial effort, and 3. general high expectations. Additionally, qualitative analyses generated a four-factor model of environmental obstacles that late adolescents and young adults recognized as why they stayed in a high-maintenance friendship: 1. positive friendship qualities, 2. shared experiences, 3. shared contexts, and 4. decrease in high-maintenance behavior over time. Quantitative analyses challenged the study’s hypotheses and indicated that lower levels of emotional closeness expectations and lower levels of avoidant attachment style predict to increased likelihood of staying in a cross-sex high-maintenance friendship. Quantitative analysis also indicated that the more a participant endorsed that the high-maintenance friendship impacted their emotional well-being, the less likely they were to stay in the friendship. Conclusions. The findings across the four phases of this study extend the current literature on difficult peer friendships in late adolescence and young adulthood by highlighting that: (a) high-maintenance friendships are inequitable, but those who experience social emotional distress in the friendship tend to not stay in the friendships, (b) there may be an optimal level of tolerable inequity which one can have in a close friendship without experiencing social emotional distress, and (c) there may be ways to increase one’s social emotional resilience and to restore an optimum level of inequity, even in problematic, high-maintenance friendships. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

abstract: During adolescence, friends are a central part of adolescents' daily lives, they serve as significant sources of emotional support and companionship (Keefe & Berndt, 1996; Way & Robinson, 2003) as well as provide opportunities to negotiate interpersonal conflicts and disagreements (Laursen & Pursell, 2009). This study was designed to examine the nature and correlates of friendships, capturing the multidimensional nature of these relationships. Specifically, three goals were proposed: (a) to use a pattern-analytic approach to identify different profiles of adolescents' friendships along three dimensions: intimacy, negativity, and involvement; (b) to examine linkages between profile membership and adolescents' cultural orientations and values; and (c) to explore the relation between profile membership and adolescent well-being. Participants were 246 Mexican-origin adolescents (M = 12.50 years; SD = 0.58) who participated in home interviews and a series of nightly phone calls. Adolescents reported on their friendship qualities, their cultural orientations and values, as well as their depressive symptoms, risky behaviors, and on their current grades (GPA). Adolescents' time spent with best friends was calculated from the seven nightly phone calls. Results revealed three distinct latent profiles: Positive Engagement, Moderate Engagement, and Low Involvement. Profile membership was not linked to adolescents' cultural orientations and values. Further, associations emerged between profile membership and adolescents' GPA, but not their risky behaviors and depressive symptoms. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Family and Human Development 2011

One of the problems in human relationships is to determine what factors enter into friendship. One method of investigating this is to study traits as compared between reciprocal and unreciprocal friendships. This present study is an effort to make contributions towards this problem.

Thesis advisor: Karen D. Arnold / Against a backdrop of increasing diversity in the United States, the number of Black women undergraduates enrolled at predominantly white institutions across the country is growing. Yet while colleges and universities are eager to diversify their campuses, often the climate of these campuses has not changed in ways that support the success of Black women. Experiences of discrimination, social isolation and hostility are commonplace, leading these women to feel as if they are guests at the institution. This research project sought to explore how same-sex, same-race friendships among Black women helped them toward developing self-authorship. Self-authorship involves the development of internal mechanisms for self-worth and decision-making. Typically, achievement of self authorship occurs after the undergraduate years. This phenomenological research study was conducted at a large religiously-affiliated university in the Northeast. Black undergraduate women were interviewed to identify their important friendships, the issues they deal with on campus, and their developmental stage of self-authorship. Findings showed that these women were dealing with racism and microinequities on campus every day. The women in this study turned to their Black women friends for support and advice to navigate the sometimes-hostile campus environment. Ethnicity related to national origin was an important factor in identity and friendship group composition. Study participants showed significant progression towards self-authorship prior to graduation. In addition to the strong positive role of same-race friendships, their experiences as Black women on campus encouraged them to become activists. Activism, in turn, enhanced their empowerment and self-authorship. This research shows that encouraging diversity on campus does not guarantee institutional climate change to meet the unique needs of these Black women. Implications from this study include the need for women of color to have opportunities for mentorship, leadership, and same-race, same-ethnicity residential environments. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

This study included 114 Native adults and 6 Native/non-Native pairs of friends (age 18-25). Experiences and attitudes for close interethnic friendships were investigated. Friendship patterns and predictors were quantitatively assessed for the 114 Natives, with qualitative examination of the development and qualities of the six friend pairs. Results of quantitative analysis revealed that 80% of this sample reported friendship investment with Whites, and 55% reported friendship investment with same-tribe members. Over 90% of participants were open to engaging in friendships with member of any ethnicity or race. Approximately 98% of participants reported being targeted for racial discrimination, with most reporting some distress, often at a low level. Significant positive correlates of past and future friendships with Whites included: household income in childhood, identification with White culture, racial/ethnic composition of students in college, multicultural experiences, and past support from parents. Multiple regressions included as significant predictors of past friendships: past parental support (t = 6.488, p < .001), past multicultural experiences (t = 3.852, p < .001), racial composition in college (t = 3.083, p = .003), and diversity climate in high school (t = 2.468, p = .015). Multiple regressions for future friendships with Whites revealed as significant predictors: past friendships (t = 5.187, p < .001), and past parental support (t = 2.507, p = .014). Qualitative findings revealed authenticity/acceptance, communication, similarity, and trust as aspects of close friendships with non-Natives. Opportunities to share cultural teachings, and shared cultural interests helped friendships develop. Participants’ descriptions of their friendships largely coincided with contact/opportunity theories, with propinquity allowing homophily, reciprocation, and disclosure to develop within the friendship. All friendship pairs weathered periods of time during which contact between friends became infrequent, but all participants asserted that they were still close friends during those periods. Findings illuminate the prominence of interethnic friendships in the lives of Native youth, and positive intergroup attitudes expressed within those relationships.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the lived experience of friendships among women who were living with bulimia during adolescence. Researchers have found that friendships are influential to the complex and multi-factoral etiology of bulimia. Friendships influence adolescent girls’ self-esteem, body image, dieting, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptoms, through bullying and peer teasing, appearance conversations, and group dieting. While living with bulimia, women have reported interpersonal problems, such as feeling unsupported within their relationships, having fewer friends compared to women who have not lived with bulimia, and isolating themselves from others. There has been limited exploration surrounding the experiences of friendships while living with bulimia, particularly during adolescence. Interpretative phenomenological analysis guided the exploration of three young women’s experience of friendships while they lived with bulimia during adolescence. These women ranged in age from 21 to 25 years. They were recruited via purposive sampling and data were generated through photo elicitation and in-depth interviews. The analyzed data formed one over-arching theme: Tension, which appeared throughout the three super-ordinate themes: The Self-in-Relation to Friends while Living with Bulimia, Friendships in the Shadow of Bulimia, and Internal Conflicts in the Relational Self. These themes were discussed within the context of the current literature followed by recommendations for future research, considerations for mental health professionals, and a conclusion, which included words of wisdom from the participants.

Over the past three decades, childhood bullying research has developed. Although bullying was first understood as an individual problem, researchers now understand that bullying is a relationship problem. Children come to a social exchange with their own cognitions and coping strategies, but are also impacted by their peers. Developmental contextualism forms the macro level framework of these studies and states that change occurs reciprocally and across many levels including the individual, interpersonal, community, and society. Social cognitive theory (and social information processing, in particular) helps at the individual and interpersonal levels in understanding the role cognitions play in affecting children’s responses in social exchanges. The series of papers in this dissertation focus on: (1) How attributions and coping styles interact within victimized children and how that affects victimization; (2) How attributions and coping styles are associated in children who bully others and how that interaction affects bullying behaviour; and (3) How children’s friendships protect or put them at risk for victimization. Overall, results suggest that children’s attributions and coping are directly associated with victimization and bullying, but do not work together in a mediational relationship. Rather specific types of attributions and coping strategies are related to involvement in bullying and victimization both within and across time and differences exist between boys and girls. With regards to friendships, the identity and communication skills of one’s friends appear to be important. Findings suggest the need for interventions that teach victimized children and their friends how to cope effectively with victimization and communicate with each other about their needs. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-12-29 15:17:14.814

Both parents and close friends are central figures in adolescents' emotional and psychological adjustment. However, little is known about how close friends socialize adolescents' emotions or how friends' socialization messages compare to those from parents in adolescence. The present study will explore how parents and friends discuss negative emotions with adolescents in relation to adolescents' emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms. Participants were 30 parent-adolescent-friend triads from a community sample. Parent and friend emotion socialization was observed during two discourse tasks (one with the parent, one with the friend) regarding a past negative event. Adolescents also reported parent and friend emotion socialization responses. Adolescents' emotion regulation was measured via heart rate variability during a baseline task (i.e., watching an animal and nature video) and via a parent-report questionnaire. Lastly, adolescents reported their internalizing symptoms on a standard questionnaire. Correlations showed that the two methods for emotion socialization (observations, questionnaires) were largely not concordant, and the different measurements of emotion regulation were also not concordant. Repeated measures MANOVAs showed that parents and friends differed in their use of various emotion socialization responses, as parents were observed to be higher in emotion coaching and co-rumination. Adolescents reported that parents were higher in emotion coaching and emotion dismissing, and friends were higher in co-rumination. These differences were not moderated by adolescent sex. Contrary to hypotheses, adolescent emotion regulation was not correlated with adolescent internalizing symptoms and did not mediate the association of parents' and friends' socialization of negative emotions with adolescent internalizing symptoms. This study unites the parent and friend literatures on emotion socialization and indicates that parents and friends are distinct socialization agents during adolescence. This study also offers insight into methodological approaches for measuring emotion socialization and emotion regulation, particularly that emotion socialization measurements need to be sensitive to the structural differences of family relationships and friendships. Future directions include exploring a wider range of socialization agents and how they may interact to influence adolescent development, amongst other topics. / Ph. D.

Contributing through the skills and capacities that they foster as well as through the quality of them, friendships have been identified as a powerful source of influence on adolescents romantic experiences. Unlike same-sex friendships, the influence of adolescents other-sex friendships on romantic relationships remains largely under-researched (Monsour, 2002; Sippola, 1999). In the current study I examined unique longitudinal and concurrent contributions of adolescents experiences of relational authenticity and intimacy in other-sex friendships to adolescents romantic intimacy and competence, while controlling for the influence of same-sex friendships.<p> Ninety-seven participants rated their perception of relational authenticity and relationship intimacy in Grade 9. In Grade 11 they rated their perception of friendship and romantic intimacy, as well as romantic competence. The present longitudinal findings showed that adolescents earlier perception of relational authenticity in other-sex friendships predicted their subsequent perception of romantic intimacy and competence. The corresponding experience in same-sex friendships predicted only romantic competence in Grade 11 and only when the influence of other-sex friendships was not being considered. Although same-sex friendship intimacy in Grade 9 also demonstrated unique links to romantic intimacy in Grade 11, other-sex friendship intimacy in Grade 9 showed no such links. With regard to concurrent findings in Grade 11, experiences of intimacy in same- and other-sex friendships both predicted romantic intimacy in Grade 11. A discussion of possible explanations to the present research results is offered. Future research is suggested.