Quality over quantity: A transactional model of social withdrawal and friendship development in late adolescence

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test a longitudinal, transactional model that describes how social withdrawal and friendship development are interrelated in late adolescence, and to investigate if post-secondary transitions are catalysts of change for highly withdrawn adolescents' friendships. Unilateral friendship data of 1,019 adolescents (61.3% female, 91% Dutch-origin) from the Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) cohort were collected five times from ages 17 to 18 years. Social withdrawal was assessed at 16 and 19 years. The transactional model was tested withinThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Associations between interpersonal behavior and friendship quality in childhood and adolescence: A meta‐analysis

“…In contrast, and as hypothesized, greater withdrawal was associated with lower positive friendship quality. Previous research has suggested that children and younger adolescents who are more withdrawn are not less likely to have friends and their friendships are not less stable (see Rubin et al, 2009; but see Barzeva et al, 2021); however, our results suggest that greater withdrawal is associated with relationships that may be less rewarding. Youth engaging in high levels of withdrawal often have friends who behave similarly (Rubin et al, 2009), which may make it even more challenging to develop a close and intimate relationship.…”

“…Conducting more studies with younger children will help elucidate developmental shifts occurring in friendship processes. It will be also important to continue to examine associations between interpersonal behavior and friendship quality into later adolescence (e.g., Barzeva et al, 2021), and young adulthood, as friends become an increasingly central source of social support (Carbery & Buhrmester, 1998).…”

“…On the one hand, youth who engage in greater withdrawal are not less likely than their peers to have a friend, nor are their friendships less stable (see Rubin et al, 2009). These data indicate that withdrawal may not be implicated in friendship functioning, at least for children and younger adolescents (see Barzeva et al, 2021). One reason that withdrawal and lower stability may not be linked is that it remains unclear whether this behavior will be associated with greater negative features in friendship.…”

A prospective study of the relative contribution of adolescent peer support quantity and quality to depressive symptoms

“…Although several prospective studies have identified a direct effect of peer relationship quality on depressive symptoms in later adolescence and adulthood (Allen et al., 2022; Bean et al., 2019; Colarossi & Eccles, 2003; Demir & Urberg, 2004), these studies did not include a quantitative measure of peer support. One prospective study examined adolescent‐reported friendship quality and number of friends during adolescence and found that only friendship quality was a unique predictor of social withdrawal in early adulthood (Barzeva, Richards, Veenstra, Meeus, & Oldehinkel, 2022), though they did not assess depression specifically. Importantly, the relative effects of peer support quantity and/or quality may change over time; thus, it cannot be assumed that unique effects that emerge in adolescence extend to adulthood.…”

“…This is a critical question given (a) the robust gender difference in the rates of depression that emerges during adolescence (Klein et al., 2013; Lewinsohn, Gotlib, Lewinsohn, Seeley, & Allen, 1998; Saluja et al., 2004) and (b) evidence showing that peer support relates to adolescent functioning depends, in part, on gender (Demir & Urberg, 2004; Falci & McNeely, 2009; Licitra‐Kleckler & Waas, 1993). For example, low perceived peer support is related to higher levels of depression (Licitra‐Kleckler & Waas, 1993) and more social withdrawal among females more than males in adolescence (Barzeva et al., 2022).…”