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Family warmth, self-perception, social competence, and friendships in emerging adulthood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

Albert Alegre Open the ORCID record for Albert Alegre [Opens in a new window]  and
Mark J. Benson
Albert Alegre*
Affiliation:
East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, USA
Mark J. Benson
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Albert Alegre, Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examines the factors influencing friendship quality during emergent adulthood. Data were collected on a sample of 393 college students (age range 18–22, M = 20.01). Nine multi-item measures were used as indicators in this study. Seven scales were drawn from the Battery of Adolescent Measures (Benson & Faas, 2014). The other two were the pragmatic (social) language and the aloof scales, which provided sensitised assessment of interpersonal deficits (Hurley, Losh, Parlier, Reznick, & Piven, 2007). The article hypothesises that family warmth predicts friendship quality during emergent adulthood. It also hypothesises that this relationship is mediated by emergent adults’ self-perceptions and by their social competence. Structural equation models supported the first hypothesis and also showed that self-perceptions and social competence partially mediate the main relationship. We also examined each mediator separately for evidence of partial mediation, but the full model remained a significantly better fit to the data compared to both single mediator models.

Keywords

friendship qualityfamily warmthself-perceptionssocial competenceemerging adulthood
Type
Articles
Information
The Educational and Developmental Psychologist , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 75 - 81
Copyright
© Australian Psychological Society Ltd 2019 

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