8 Friendship Across the Life Span
sixth grade and found that both early- onset depressive symptoms and particularly
the accumulation of symptoms across third to fifth grade predicted declines in the
number of reciprocated friendships as well as poorer perceived friendship quality.
Notably, these findings were observed in girls only, perhaps because compared with
boys’ friendships, girls’ friendships involve greater exchange of emotional provi-
sions, and it can be very difficult for depressed individuals to offer the emotional
support and nurturance that girls expect in their friendships. Investigating sixth-
through eighth- grade students, Prinstein, Borelli, Cheah, Simon, and Aikins (2005)
found that for both girls and boys, greater depressive symptoms were associated
with less stability in reciprocated friendships and increases in adolescents’ percep-
tion of negative friendship quality over an 11- month period. Similar results were
obtained by Oppenheimer and Hankin (2011), who examined short- term longitu-
dinal and bidirectional associations between depressive symptoms and friendship
qualities in adolescents (grades 6– 10). Depressive symptoms predicted increases
in negative qualities and decreases in positive qualities over a 5- week period, but
positive and negative qualities did not predict increases in depressive symptoms.
Together, these longitudinal studies suggest a downward spiral, in which depressive
symptoms contribute to difficulties with friendships. However, it also seems likely
that poor friendship quality predicts increases in later depressive symptoms, a pos-
sibility that future research should explore over longer time intervals.
An interesting recent line of inquiry has examined the importance of friend-
ship participation for children at high risk for developing depression. Research by
Brendgen et al. (2013) involving monozygotic and same- sex dizygotic twin pairs
demonstrated that positive friendship experiences help protect fourth- grade stu-
dents genetically vulnerable to depression from experiencing elevated depressive
symptoms. Specifically, girls who had at least one close friend were less likely to
exhibit depressive symptoms, and this protective effect was strongest among those
who were most genetically vulnerable to depressive symptoms. In contrast, boys
benefited from friendship participation regardless of genetic risk, although the ben-
eficial effect was smaller than for girls. These results are consistent with findings that,
compared with boys, girls derive more emotional support from their friendships
(Rose & Rudolph, 2006). Results of the Brendgen et al. (2013) study highlight the
importance of teaching social interaction skills that promote high- quality friendship
experiences to help prevent the development of depression symptoms in at- risk chil-
dren. Though not yet examined, perhaps the impact of friends in protecting geneti-
cally vulnerable individuals from depression is even stronger in adolescence, given
the increasing importance of friendship across development (Buhrmester, 1990).
Anxiety
Difficulties in friendships are also related to greater feelings of anxiety (see Kingery,
Erdley, Marshall, Whitaker, & Reuter, 2010, for a review). Children with elevated