Birds of a Feather: Intensification Effects of Teen Best Friendships on
Psychological Functioning
Student Author: Meghan Costello
Faculty Advisor: Joe Allen
The importance of the best friend in the high schooler’s life is widely
accepted but the best friend relationship can work in both positive and
negative directions with regard to psychological dysfunction. The present
study seeks to understand the mechanisms at play in toxic relationships.
This work draws from two waves of data, collected one year apart from 184
15-to-16-year olds, to analyze the relationship between social interaction
styles within a best friendship and subsequent changes in self-reports of
depression and aggression. It was hypothesized that teens with higher
baseline scores of depression and aggression would display an increase in
these psychopathologies in more intense friendships. Hierarchical
regression analysis indicated that different levels of friendship intensity
predict changes in relative depression and aggression in adolescents such
that more intense friendships amplify pre-existing tendencies and less
intense friendships do not, moderated by baseline expression of depressive
or aggressive tendencies.