Quality of friendships and well-being in adolescence: daily life study

Within positive youth development approach, adaptive developmental outcomes are the result of supportive interactions between adolescents and their environment, particularly among peers. However, there is a gap in literature on within-person processes related to the quality of friendships and well-being in daily life. The aim of this study was to fill this gap. 130 Croatian high school students participated in an experience sampling study and completed questionnaires seven times a day for seven days. Results of Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling showed that most concurrent between-person and within-person associations were consistent with existing literature. Further, positive affect predicted an increase in positive friendship characteristics two hours later. Negative friendship characteristics predicted an increase in negative affect two hours later, and vice versa. These findings underline the importance of close friendships for well-being of adolescents in everyday life and call for future research to provide the basis for mental health promotion programmes.