A Few Close Friends? Adolescent Friendships' Effect on Internalizing Symptoms Is Serially Mediated by Desire for More Friends and Social Goal Orientation.

Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 0333507 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-6601 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00472891 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Youth Adolesc Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 1999- : New York, NY : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
Original Publication: New York, Plenum Press.

Friends* ; Interpersonal Relations*; Female ; Humans ; Adolescent ; Male ; Motivation ; Peer Group ; Goals

Interpersonal connection is a fundamental human motivation, and the extent to which it is fulfilled is a strong predictor of symptoms of internalizing disorders such as social anxiety and depression, perhaps especially during the "social reorienting" period of adolescence. However, little is known about the contribution to this effect of the individual's social motivations, which are intensified during adolescence. Furthermore, social goal orientation - an individual's priorities and intentions in social interactions - is an important predictor of vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. Adolescents spend most of their waking lives in classrooms, bounded social networks with a limited pool of candidates for befriending. This study investigated whether friendships within one's class protects against internalizing symptoms in part by reducing the desire for more classmate friendships, which may tend to promote maladaptive social goals. Participants were 423 young adolescents (M age = 13.2, sd = 0.52 years; 49.4% girls). As predicted, adolescents' number of reciprocated classroom friendships had a protective effect on internalizing symptoms which was serially mediated by desire for more such friendships, and social goal orientation. However, only demonstration-avoidance goals significantly predicted internalizing symptoms. Unreciprocated friendship nominations were unexpectedly associated with stronger desire and more social anxiety symptoms. The results suggest that the effect of number of friends is mediated by the individual's thoughts and feelings about their number of friendships, such that a strong desire for more friendships promotes maladaptive goals, oriented toward social status and consequently less oriented toward the cultivation of interpersonal intimacy with the friends they already have.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)

Erratum in: J Youth Adolesc. 2023 Oct 28;:. (PMID: 37897682)

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648082 International ERC_ European Research Council

Keywords: Adjustment; Classmate friendships; Early adolescence; Motivation; Social cognition; Social goals

Date Created: 20230430 Date Completed: 20230515 Latest Revision: 20231030

20231215

PMC10175381

10.1007/s10964-023-01780-z

37120791