14 Friendship Across the Life Span
may influence the depressive cycle, an idea supported by findings that while ado-
lescent girls experienced earlier onset of depressive episodes than boys, this gender
difference was partially explained by co- rumination (Stone, Hankin, Gibb, & Abela,
2011). Overall, there is compelling support that co- rumination among female
friends increases feelings of closeness, but at the same time this process elevates the
risk for depressive symptoms.
Future Directions for Research
Friendships are clearly significant relationships in the lives of children and ado-
lescents. Interestingly, studies have indicated that having even just one friend can
protect a person from negative outcomes, including loneliness (Parker & Asher,
1993), low self- esteem (Bishop & Inderbitzen, 1995), and risk for peer victimiza-
tion (Hodges et al., 1999). These findings illustrate the importance of promoting
positive friendship experiences. However, to date, the vast majority of efforts to
improve children’s peer relations have focused on increasing overall peer acceptance
(see Bierman & Powers, 2009, for a review), though the goal of helping a child to
develop and maintain one good friendship seems more attainable than improving
the child’s reputation within the larger peer group (Asher, Parker, & Walker, 1996).
Research on friendship intervention programs has been fairly limited and narrowly
focused, primarily targeting children with ADHD. For example, at an ADHD sum-
mer treatment program, Hoza, Mrug, Pelham, Greiner, and Gnagy (2003) paired
children with a specific “buddy.” Buddy pairs had opportunities to interact fre-
quently, and parents were encouraged to provide opportunities outside of the pro-
gram to promote the friendship. In another investigation, Mikami, Lerner, Griggs,
McGrath, and Calhoun (2010) specifically trained parents of children with ADHD
to be friendship coaches. Both studies found that greater parental involvement was
associated with children having higher- quality friendships. Despite these promis-
ing findings, more research evaluating friendship intervention programs is needed,
and greater attention should be given to the ways that these programs should be
tailored based on variables including child gender, behavioral characteristics, and
developmental level.
Another important direction for future research is to more systematically exam-
ine the causal direction between friendship experiences and outcomes, particu-
larly through employing longitudinal research. The majority of studies have used
correlational designs, which prohibit conclusions regarding causality. Although it
seems reasonable to assume that poor friendship experiences contribute to negative
outcomes, it is equally plausible that negative outcomes can lead to poor friend-
ship experiences. Indeed, longitudinal studies examining the relationships between
depression and poor friendship experiences have indicated that depression seems
to both precede (Rudolph et al., 2007) and follow (Brendgen et al., 2013) poor