Off-campus WSU users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your WSU access ID and password, then click the "Off-campus Download" button below.
Non-WSU users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Hannah L. Schacter
Abstract
My dissertation is comprised of two studies that examine the role of friendship stability in shaping adolescents’ mental and physical health outcomes. This dissertation uses data from Phase 1 and 2 of the Promoting Relationships and Identity Development in Education (PRIDE) study assessing adolescents’ well-being following the transition to high school. Expanding upon descriptive findings of adolescent friendship stability, Study 1 uses longitudinal paneled data from the first three years of high school (i.e., Phase 1) to examine whether adolescents’ friendship stability changes over the first three years of high school and how these changes are associated with mental and physical health outcomes later in high school. Latent growth curve model estimates revealed that adolescents’ friendships became increasingly less stable across high school, and these changes were not associated with mental and physical health outcomes. Results from Study 1 suggest that normative declines in friendship stability across high school are not undermining adolescents’ health. Building upon prior evidence documenting associations between adolescents’ daily friendship experiences and overall well-being, Study 2 tests whether changes in adolescents’ friendship stability across two weeks as well as day-to-day are associated with changes in their daily mental and physical health symptoms using 14 days of daily diary data in 11th grade (i.e., Phase 2). Multilevel modeling results showed that daily fluctuations in friendship stability are not associated with adolescents’ daily mental or physical health symptoms. These findings suggest that adolescents do not always stick with the same friends from one day to the next, and that this frequent change in the consistency of adolescents’ friendships is not harmful to their daily well-being. In examining friendship stability across years as well as days, the results of these studies further our understanding of how friendships change across adolescence and how these changes are not maladaptive for adolescents’ mental and physical health.
Recommended Citation
Ehrhardt, Alexandra, "Adolescents’ Friendship Stability And Health Following The Transition To High School" (2024). Wayne State University Dissertations. 4017.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/4017
