A Survival Analysis of Adolescent Friendships: The Downside of Dissimilarity

Overview

Journal Psychol Sci

Specialty Psychology

Date 2015 Jul 19

PMID 26187246

Citations 19

Authors

Amy C Hartl

Brett Laursen

Antonius H N Cillessen

Affiliations

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Abstract

The present study examined whether adolescent friendships dissolve because of characteristics of friends, differences between friends, or both. Participants were 410 adolescents (201 boys, 209 girls; mean age = 13.20 years) who reported a total of 573 reciprocated friendships that originated in the seventh grade. We conducted discrete-time survival analyses, in which peer nominations and teacher ratings collected in Grade 7 predicted the occurrence and timing of friendship dissolution across Grades 8 to 12. Grade 7 individual characteristics were unrelated to friendship stability, but Grade 7 differences in sex, peer acceptance, physical aggression, and school competence predicted subsequent friendship dissolution. The findings suggest that compatibility is a function of similarity between friends rather than the presence or absence of a particular trait.

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