Support in adolescents' cross-gender friendships: Understanding girls' disadvantage

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary During adolescence, friends meet more of youths’ relationship needs, including needs for support. Importantly, despite hundreds of studies focused on same-gender friends, relatively few studies have considered cross- gender friendships. Learning more about cross-gender friendships in adolescence, however, is important as the prevalence of cross-gender friendships increases during adolescence. Moreover, better understanding cross- gender friendships is especially important for girls because girls seem to be at a disadvantage in cross-gender friendships. Specifically, boys perceive cross-gender friendships to be more supportive than do girls. The gap in the literature is that the’ specific behaviors in cross-gender friendships associated with positive perceptions of the friendships are unknown. This gap will be addressed in the proposed research by observing 60 cross-gender friend dyads (120 adolescents). Given the importance of social support to friendship, cross- gender friends’ interactions will be observed in a context in which the adolescents disclose a problem and friends have the opportunity to provide support (or not). Friends’ responses to adolescents’ disclosures about personal problems will be coded into response categories. Some of these are engaged and positive (e.g., sharing a related experience) and some are disengaged and negative (e.g., minimizing the problem). In a large study of same- gender friendships, we found that girls produced more engaged/positive responses than boys and that receiving engaged/positive responses from friends was associated with positive perceptions of the friendship. Gender differences were not found for disengaged/negative responses and disengaged/negative responses were not related to adolescents’ perceptions of the friendship, The following hypotheses will be tested in the proposed research. Findings are expected to replicate previous research indicating that boys perceive their cross-gender friendships more positively than do girls. In addition, girls are expected to produce more positive/engaged responses to cross-gender friends’ disclosures than boys (no hypothesis is put forth regarding gender differences in disengaged/negative strategies). Receiving engaged/positive responses from cross-gender friends also is hypothesized to be related to perceptions of the friendships as supportive and close (no hypotheses are put forth for disengaged/negative responses). Importantly, a line of research that identifies specific behaviors in cross-gender friendships that are associated with positive perceptions of the friendship could have significant applied implications for programs aimed at promoting positive cross-gender interactions. Finally, the proposed research is innovative both in the focus on cross-gender friendships and the application of a very detailed and nuanced coding system.