Friendship and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed investigation constitutes an extension of a NIMH-funded longitudinal project (NIH # MH58116), in which the friendships and parent-child relationships of socially withdrawn, aggressive, and control children were examined before and after they made the transition to middle school. The primary purpose of the proposed study is to examine developmental trajectories of socially withdrawn and control children/adolescents from the first to the last year of middle school (6th to 8th grade) and across the transition into the first year of high school (9th grade), with particular emphasis on the roles of significant relationships in modifying or reinforcing these trajectories. The early adolescent period in general and, in particular, the transition to high school is a time of enormous social, emotional, and physical changes for children. The developmental risks and potential protective factors of this period are likely to be more intense, complex, and carry more serious consequences than the earlier period being studied in our current project. The extension of our study to 9th grade will allow us to examine the cumulative effects of social withdrawal, as well as tracking potential developmental trajectories, that would be impossible to test with our current data. The first specific aim is to evaluate differences between control and withdrawn children in the nature and quality of their relationships with best friends and parents in 6th, 8th, and 9th grades. The second specific aim is to determine how behavioral characteristics in each grade (6th, 8th, 9th) are related to adjustment outcomes, and how these associations are moderated by the nature and quality of relationships with best friends and parents. "Outcomes" include internalizing and externalizing problems or the lack thereof as well as self-perceptions of competence in various domains. The third specific aim is to assess the stability over time (grades 6, 8, 9) of (a) behavioral characteristics (e.g., social withdrawal) and (b) the nature and quality of relationships with best friends and parents. Finally the fourth specific aim is to evaluate the ways in which relationships with best friends and parents shape adjustment over time, and how these pathways differ as a function of behavioral status (withdrawal versus control).