Citation

McDonald KL, Dashiell-Aje E, Menzer MM, Rubin KH, Oh W, Bowker JC. J. Early Adolesc. 2013; 33(7): 897-919.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0272431612472259

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The current study examined how racial and sociobehavioral similarities were associated with friendship stability and friendship quality. Cross-race friends were not significantly similar to each other in peer-nominated shyness/withdrawal, victimization, exclusion, and popularity/sociability. Relative to same-race friends, cross-race friends were significantly less similar in peer-nominated popularity/sociability, exclusion, and victimization. Although same-race friendships were more prevalent than cross-race friendships, only similarity in friends' aggressive behavior (but not racial homophily) was related to friendship stability. Neither racial nor sociobehavioral similarity predicted friendship quality beyond adolescents' individual sociobehavioral characteristics. Taken together, findings suggest that although racial similarity may affect initial friendship formation, racial similarity may not impact friendship stability or friendship quality when also accounting for friends' similarity in sociobehavioral characteristics.

Language: en