Associations between adolescent friends' responses during problem talk and depressive symptoms.

Abstract

The present study examined how friends' responses to each other during problem talk predicted depressive symptoms over time. Participants included 271 adolescent friend dyads (69 female and 69 male early adolescent dyads; 72 female and 61 male middle adolescent dyads; 66.4% White and 26.6% Black). The adolescents were observed discussing a problem with the friend and reported on depressive symptoms at the time of observation and 9 months later. Friends' responses were coded into one of nine response type categories (i.e., four positive/engaged response types, one neutral response type, and four negative/disengaged response types). Actor-partner interdependence models revealed significant actor and partner effects for both positive and negative responses. Notably, receiving and/or producing positive/engaged responses, including saying something supportive, sharing related experiences, and asking questions, were associated with lower depressive symptoms over time. Receiving and/or producing negative/disengaged responses, including sharing one's own experience in a distracting way, changing the subject, saying something unsupportive or minimizing the problem, and saying nothing at all heightened risk for depressive symptoms. Additionally, significant Actor × Partner interactions revealed that greater differences between the friends in the degree to which they produced supportive responses were associated with increased depressive symptoms and that both friends saying nothing at all was associated with increased depressive symptoms. When gender and grade differences were found, the associations typically were particularly strong for middle-adolescent girls. These results highlight the importance of attending to friends' specific behaviors in social support contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).