Abstract
Although high-quality friendships are presumed to protect peer-victimized adolescents from distress, evidence supporting this claim is mixed. This study investigated whether the protective function of high-quality best friendships for victimized youth varies depending on adolescents’ perceptions of their best friend’s victimization. Among a sample of 1,667 eighth graders, we tested the effects of self-perceived victimization, best friend emotional support, and best friend victimization on depressive symptoms and social anxiety across eighth grade. Perceptions of higher emotional support buffered links between boys’ victimization and depressive symptoms. Perceived emotional support buffered links between girls’ victimization and internalizing symptoms if they viewed their best friend as nonvictimized, but it amplified such associations if they viewed their friend as victimized. These results suggest that although perceptions of best friend emotional support benefit peer-victimized youth, highly intimate friendships between victimized adolescent girls may promote maladaptive coping and increased distress.
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