Adolescent Girls' Relationships with Mothers and Best Friends
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Adolescent Girls' Relationships with Mothers
and Best Friends
Leslie A. Gavin
National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine;
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
Wyndol Furman
University of Denver
GAVIN, LESLIE A., and FURMAN, WYNDOL. Adolescent Girls' Relationships with Mothers and Best
Friends. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1996, 67, 375-386. The present study examined factors associated
with harmony in adolescent girls' relationships with their mothers and their best friends. A
framework was proposed in which relationship harmony was expected to be related to individual
characteristics of each partner and the match between the individual characteristics of each
partner. 60 adolescent girls, their mothers, and their best friends participated in self-report and
observational tasks. Harmonious mother-daughter partners (vs. disharmonious ones) had more
similar needs, felt their needs were better met, perceived their partners as more socially skilled,
and had more similar interests. Harmonious friends (vs. disharmonious ones) had more similar
needs, and target adolescents perceived partners to be more socially skilled and better at meeting
their needs. Observational ratings of attunement, positive affect, and power negotiation were
greater in harmonious relationships with both mothers and friends. Discussion focuses on the
value of a common framework for studying different relationships.
Researchers have devoted considerable The purpose of the present study was
attention to both parent-adolescent relation- to use a common theoretical framework to
ships and adolescent friendships (see Savin- identify factors associated with adolescents'
Williams & Berndt, 1990; Steinberg, 1990). perceptions of harmony in relationships
However, with some notable exceptions with mothers and best friends. By harmony,
(Furman & Buhrmester, 1985; Gold &Yanof, we mean frequent supportive interactions
1985), most investigators have focused on and infrequent conflictual interactions. The
only one relationship at a time. Moreover, constructofharmony was of interest because
investigators often employ different con- it incorporates a wide range of supportive
structs to explore characteristics ofthese two and conflictual relationship features, can be
kinds of relationships. For example, family used to examine both family and peer rela-
researchers have extensively examined con- tionships, and is associated with perceptions
flict between parents and adolescents, but of adjustment in adolescence (Furman,
we know relatively little about conflict be- 1987).
tween friends. Conversely, more is known
about the role of similarity in friendships Relationship Harmony
than in parent-adolescent relationships. As a What factors may be associated with har-
consequence, research on these two rela- monious relationships? We expected such
tionships has remained relatively isolated variables to fall into two categories (Furman,
from one another. Often we do not know if 1984). First, having certain individual char-
results pertaining to one relationship are acteristics, such as social skill, may be asso-
specific to that relationship or may be ap- ciated with being a good relationship part-
plied to adolescents' relationships in ner. Second, harmony may stem from
general. similarity between partners' individual char-
This research was supported by a W. T. Grant Faculty Scholar Award to Wyndol Furman.
Appreciation is expressed to Lawrence Epstein, Beverly Morris, Judy Pomeranz, and Ken Wyatt
for their invaluable assistance. We also appreciate the cooperation of the Gherry Creek and
Englewood School systems. Reprints of this article and copies ofthe measures can be obtained
from Leslie Gavin, National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, K-802,
1400 Jackson Street, Denver, CO 80206 or Wyndol Furman, Department of Psychology, Univer-
sity of Denver, Denver, CO 80208.
[Child Development, 1996,67, 375-386. © 1996 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
Alt rights reserved. 0009-3920/96/6702-0025$01.00]376 Child Development
acteristics, such as interests or perceived lationships than in relationships with par-
socioemotional needs. In the present study, ents. Furthermore, it is important not to
we considered both individual characteris- equate these relationships. For example, we
tics of each partner and similarity of charac- expected relationship harmony to be related
teristics between partners in our examina- to how well the adolescents perceived their
tion of harmony in adolescents' relationships needs were met by each partner, although
with peers and parents. the specific needs could vary across parent
and peer relationships.
Individual characteristics.—Although
few studies have specifically examined in- The Present Study
terpersonal harmony, many variables have In the present study, adolescent girls'
been related to interpersonal attraction. For relationships with their mothers and best
example, social skill has received consider; friends were investigated. For both parent-
able attention as an important variable in' adolescent and friendship pairs, relationship
friendship formation and maintenance. harmony was hypothesized to be related to
Buhrmester (1990) found that social compe- (1) certain individual characteristics of each
tence in peer relationships was associated partner that lend themselves to maintaining
with greater intimacy in friendships. To harmonious relationships (i.e., positive so-
date, social skills have not been examined cial skills and prosocial interpersonal char-
as extensively in parent-adolescent relation- acteristics, ability to meet partners' needs)
ships, although clinical investigators have and (2) similarity of certain characteristics of
taught parents and adolescents communica- the two people (i.e., similarity of interests
tion skills as a way of improving their rela- and socioemotional needs).
tionships (Robin & Foster, 1989). Other po-
tentially important individual characteristics
include emotional attunement, display of Method
positive affect, high self-esteem, psychologi- Subjects
cal mindedness, and ability to manage The participants were 60 adolescent
power and jealousy within the relationship. girls, their mothers, and best female friends.
The age range for the focal adolescents was
Similarity of partners' characteris- 15-18 years (mean = 16.5), for friends was
tics.—Similarity of interests and similarity 12-18 (mean = 16.2), and for mothers
of attitudes are also major predictors of inter- was 34-58 (mean = 43.5). The sample com-
personal attraction (see Hinde, 1979; Huston prised 57 Caucasian, one African-American,
& Levinger, 1978). Children emphasize the and two Hispanic females. The participants
importance of shared activities in their con- were primarily from middle-class urban and
ceptions of friendship (Bigelow, 1977; Fur- suburban families, with the mean family in-
man & Bierman, 1984), and iu their reasons come being $30,000-$40,000 per year. Fifty-
for liking friends (Rubin, 1980). Attitudes are eight percent of the target adolescents' par-
more similar among adolescent friends than ents were married, 3% were separated, 37%
among those who are not friends, and were divorced, and 2% ofthe mothers were
friends' attitudes become more similar to widowed.
one another over time (Kandel, 1978). Al-
though similarity has been shown to be im- Procedure
portant in friendships, it has not been exam- Questionnaires were administered to a
ined empirically in parent-adolescent large pool of subjects to identify adolescents
relationships. Relationship harmony may with particularly harmonious or disharmoni-
also be related to the degree to which the ous relationships. The questionnaires were
two partners have similar socioemotional distributed through local school systems and
needs and the degree to which each partner through televised public service announce-
perceives that their needs are being met in ments. Approximately 450 interested adoles-
the relationship. cents completed a 16-item short version of
the Network of Relationship Inventory
We believe that a common framework (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985), which
may be used to understand harmony or dis- assessed supportive and negative interac-
harmony in relationships with both parents tions with their mothers and their best fe-
and friends. We generally expected the same male friends. The adolescent's perception
factors to be associated with harmony in the of harmony was defined as the degree of
two kinds of relationships, but some differ- perceived support minus the degree ol
ences may occur. For example, similarity of perceived negative interaction in that rela-
interests may be more important in peer re- tionship. Harmonious relationships wereGavin and Furman 377
considered to be those with scores at least and nurturance of the other) and (2) Nega-
one-half of a standard deviation above the tive Interactions (conflict, punishment, and
mean, whereas disharmonious were those at irritation). Cronbach's alphas of the factors
least one-half of a standard deviation below exceeded .90.
the mean. Although the terms harmonious
and disharmonious are used to describe The NRI was used because it is one of
these relationships, it should be noted that the few validated measures available that
they are defined in terms of their relative poses parallel questions across relation-
degree of harmony and not in any absolute ships, thus providing comparable data. Addi-
sense of harmony or disharmony. tionally, the NRI also taps a totai of 10 differ-
ent supportive or negative features of
Using these criteria, we identified equal relationships, permitting us to examine a rel-
numbers of adolescents who had relatively atively broad construct. The harmony scores
harmonious relationships with both part- used for assigning subjects to groups were
ners, relatively disharmonious relationships calculated by subtracting standardized nega-
with both, relatively harmonious relation- tive interaction scores from the standardized
ships with mothers and relatively disharmo- support scores.
nious relationships with friends, and vice
versa. Thus, our screening procedure The focal adolescents' and their part-
yielded a group of adolescents with diverse ners' reports of harmony were highly related
relational experiences with mothers and (adolescent-friend r — .55; adolescent-
friends. mother r = .61). We chose to use only the
one rater, the focal adolescent, so that the
At the time of the actual study, the re* rater was consistent across relationships.
cruited adolescents again rated their rela-
tionships using the full version of the NRI, Activities and Interests Inventory.—
and final assignment to the four groups was This questionnaire was used to assess the
done by median splits on these full harmony similarity of each set of partners' activities
scale scores. In particular, the 60 adoles- and interests. Each of the three partici-
cents were assigned to the following groups: pants was asked how much they enjoy a range
(1) those with relatively harmonious rela- of 66 activities, including various sports,
tionships with both mothers and friends artistic hobbies, and recreational and daily
(N = 17), (2) those with relatively disharmo- activities. The format for each item was a
nious relationships with both {N - 16), (3) five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not
those with relatively harmonious relation- at all) to 5 (extremely much). The similarity
ships with mothers and relatively disharmo- between the adolescent's and partner's in-
nious relationships with friends (N = 14), terests was determined by correlating the
and (4) vice versa (N = 13). adolescent's ratings with those of each of her
partners.
During their visit to the laboratory, ado-
lescents, parents, and friends all completed Emotional Needs Inventory.—The
sets of questionnaires, and adolescent- Emotional Needs Inventory comprised a list
mother and adolescent-friend dyads were of 16 social and emotional needs derived
observed interacting. Adolescents and their from the work of Maslow (1954), Murray
friends were each paid $15.00. Mothers par- (1938), Sullivan (1953), and Weiss (1974)
ticipated voluntarily. Initially, participants were asked to rate how
important each need was within a particular
Questionnaire Measures relationship. Mothers rated the items in
Network of Relationships Inventory terms of tfieir parent-adolescent relation-
(NRI).—The NRI (Furman & Buhrmester, ship, best friends rated items in terms of
1985) was used to assess the adolescent's their best friend relationship, and focal ado-
perceptions of supportive and negative in- lescents did both. Ratings for each item were
teractions with mother and best friend. For done on a five-point Likert scale, ranging
example, subjects were asked, "How much from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (extremely
does this person help you when you need to important). Having rated all the items, par-
get something done?" Ratings were done on ticipants were asked to choose their three
standard five-point Likert scales, and anchor most important needs in a particular rela-
points ranged from 1 (little or none) to 5 (the tionship and rate how well the partner met
most). The NRI includes 10 three-item those needs. These latter ratings were used
scales that load on two factors: (1) Support to assess need fulfillment, whereas an index
(affection, admiration, reliable alliance, inti- of needs similarity was derived by corre-
macy, companionship, instrumental help. lating the two full sets of needs ratings.378 Child Development
Social skills.—All participants were relation with Spearman-Brown correction
asked to rate how well their partners per- for proportion with composite ratings).
formed a series of 11 social skills. Some A principal components analysis with an
items were derived from the Perceived In- oblique rotation was performed on the 240
terpersonal Competencies Inventory (PICI; sorts. A nine-factor solution accounting for
Buhrmester, Furman, Wittenberg, & Reis, 51.2% ofthe variance was selected because
1988), and others were created specifically it provided the most theoretically coherent
for this study. Mothers and friends rated results (see Table 1 for Q-sort items and fac-
their perceptions of the focal adolescent. tor loadings).
The focal adolescent rated both the mother
and the best friend. A five-point Likert scale Factors are labeled as follows: Coopera-
(1 = poor to 5 = extremely good) was em- tive relationship characteristics (15 items,
ployed. The Cronbach's alpha for the Cronbaeh's alpha = .92); Psychological
mother, friend, and adolescent ratings Mindedness (five items, Cronbach's alpha =
ranged from .83 to .88. .78); Affect (seven items, Cronbach's alpha
= .86); Self-Esteem (five items, Cronbach's
Observational Measures alpha = .66); Self-Centeredness (four items,
Tasks.—Adolescent-mother and adoles- Cronbach's alpha - .60); Problem-Solving
cent-friend dyads were videotaped while (three items, Cronbach's alpha = .73);
participating in three 8-min interactions. Or- Power (three items, Cronbach's alpha =
der of dyad was counterbalanced across sub- .66); Attunement (seven items, Cronbach's
jects. In the first segment, the pair was asked alpha = .86); and Jealousy (three items.
to plan a week-long vacation. This t^k, de- Cronbach's alpha = .52).
veloped by Grotevant and Cooper (1983),
was used to elicit cooperation and fun in the Results
relationship. In the second segment, each
partner identified three problems in their re- Preliminary Analyses
lationship. They were then asked to agree Measures of similarity of interests and
upon and discuss the most severe problem, needs were determined by calculating the
including why it was a problem, feelings correlations between the adolescent's and
about the problem, and possible solutions. each partner's scores. Next, preliminary
This task is similar to conflict tasks used in analyses were performed to investigate
previous studies of adolescents' family inter- questions of discriminant validity among the
actions (Hauser et al., 1984). The third seg- self-report measures. These analyses re-
ment was designed to examine parent and vealed that the internal consistency of the
friend supportiveness. Specifically, dyads different self-report measures (harmony,
were asked to discuss a problem the adoles- need fulfillment, and social skills) were
cent was experiencing outside ofthe present higher than their intercorrelations with one
relationship. exception. Reports of social skills were
highly related to reports of need fulfillment
Observational ratings.—Each individ- (mean r = .71). Other than this, the mea-
ual in each dyad was coded using the Inter- sures had satisfactory discriminant validity.
actional Q-sort. The Q-set consisted of 58 Next, 2 x 2 MANOVAs (harmonious/
items which focused on (a) characteristics of disharmonious relationship with modier x
the individual during the interaction (e.g., harmonious/disharmonious best friend rela-
affect and mood) and (b) how the individual tionship) were condw^ted on the set of
manages the relationship with the partner scores for the mother-adolescent relation-
(e.g., social skills, ability to mwiage confiict, ship and those for the adolescent-friend rela-
attunement). Haters sorted the items using a tionship. The MANOVA of the variables
fixed seven-point distribution, with each concerning the mother-adolescent relation-
pole representing items that are most charac- ship revealed a significant effect for har-
teristic ofthe individual being coded. mony in the mother-adolescent relationship,
There were three raters, each with ex- Wilks's lambda = .23, j3 < .01, whereas the
tensive clinical and coding experience. To effects of hannony in the friendship and the
avoid carry-over effects, a rater observed interaction of harmony in the two relation-
only one of die two sets of dyadic interac- ships were not significant. Conversely, the
tions for a particular focal adolescent. A sub- MANOVA of the friendship variables
set of 24 sorts per pair of coders (48 total) yielded a significant effect for harmony in
was used to calculate interrater reliability. the friendship relationship, Wilks's lambda
The interrater reliability was .75 (mean cor- = .36, p < .05, whereas the eflfects of har-Gavin and Furman 379
TABLE 1 mony in the mother-adolescent relationship
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oGavin and Furman 381
with harmonious relationships had more in both relationships displayed more posi-
similar needs than those in disharmonious tive affect than adolescents with harmonious
friendships, F(i, 59) = 7.05, p < .01. relationships with mothers and disharmoni-
ous friendships; scores for the other two
Reported Social Skills cells fell in between. The main effect for
As reported in Table 2, adolescents who jealousy was also moderated by a similar in-
reported harmonious relationships with teraction effect, F(l, 59) = 5.75, p < .05.
their mothers were rated as more socially Again, adolescents who were satisfied with
skilled by their mothers and in turn rated both relationships displayed less jealousy
their mothers as more socially skilled, F(l, with their friends than girls with harmonious
59) = 9.02, p < .01, F(l, 59) = 35.99, p < relationships with mothers and disharmoni-
.01. Similarly, adolescents who had harmo- ous relationships with friends.
nious friendships rated their friends as more
socially skillfril, F(l, 59) = 17.18, p < .01. Analyses of friends' interpersonal char-
Friends' ratings of the adolescent's social acteristics as displayed with the focal adoles-
skill did not differ as a function of the har- cents revealed the following. Compared to
mony ratings. those in disharmonious friendships, friends
in harmonious relationships had higher rat-
Observational Ratings of Interpersonal ings on cooperative social skills, F{1, 59) =
Characteristics 7.29, p < .01, display of positive affect, F(l,
As described in the "Methods" section, 59) = 4.18, p < .05, ability to not be self-
the 58 Q-sort items were subjected to a prin- centered, F(l, 59) = 7.25, p < .01, ability to
cipal components analysis. Using the nine negotiate power in the relationship, F(l, 59)
factors that emerged from this analysis, 2 x = 6.53, p < .01, attunement, F(l, 59) = 6.22,
2 ANOVAs were carried out for each factor p < .05, and lack of jealousy, F( 1, 59) = 5.04,
to determine whether certain interpersonal p < .05. The main effect for lack of jealousy
characteristics differed as a function of the was moderated, however, by an interaction
adolescent's reports of relationship harmony effect, F(l, 59) = 5.28, p < .05. FoUow-up
with mother and friend (see Table 3). Analy- tests indicated that girls with harmonious re-
ses ofthe ratings of interactions with moth- lationships with mothers and friends had
ers revealed that adolescents with more hai- friends who were significantly less jealous
monious relationships with mothers than girls with harmonious relationships
displayed more cooperative relationship with mothers and disharmonious ones with
skills, F(l, 59) = 17.37, p < .01, more posi- friends; scores for the other two cells fell in
tive affect, F(l, 59) = 7.81, p < .01, more between. Once again, this interaction and
attunement to mother, F(l, 59) = 9.58, p < those described in the preceding paragraph
.01, and better ability to negotiate power, should be interpreted cautiously as the in-
F(l, 59) - 4.04, p < .05. teraction effect was not significant in the
MANOVA.
Similarly, mothers who had harmonious
relationships with their adolescents re-
ceived higher ratings on the following vari- Discussion
ables: cooperative relationship skills, F(l, Much ofthe literature on adolescent re-
59) = 7.61, p < .01, display of positive affect, lationships has focused on understanding
F(l, 59) = 4.10, p < .05, ability to problem normative developmental changes in adoles-
solve, F(l, 59) - 4.95, p < .05, ability to cents' relationships with parents and
negotiate power with daughter, F(l, 59) -- friends. In contrast, the present study exam-
4.88, p < .05, and attunement with daughter, ined individual differences in these relation-
F(l, 59) = 7.43, p < .01. Analyses of the ships. In particular, we tried to determine
interactions with friends revealed that ado- whether a common framework of variables
lescents with harmonious friendships dis- could be used to understand variations in
played more positive affect, F(l, 59) = 7.37, the degree of harmony in adolescents' rela-
p < .01, better ability to share power in the tionships with mothers and best friends. We
relationship, F(l, 59) = 7.37, p < .01, and found that both individual characteristics
less jealousy, F(l, 59) = 7.25, p < .01. The and the match of individual characteristics
main effect for the adolescent's display of were important correlates of relationship
positive affect, however, was moderated by harmony. Our findings are strengthened by
a significant interaction between harmony our reliance on multiple methods and multi-
with friend and harmony with mother, F(l, ple agents, as the inclusion of observational
59) = 5.62, p < .05. Newman-Keuls tests in- techniques helps rule out the possibility of
dicated that adolescents perceiving harmony shared method variance accounting for allmothe
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a^ t * t~384 Child Development
associations. Moreover, many ofthe signifi- and remain in authority while giving the ad-
cant questionnaire results were based on olescent an increasing amount of autonomy
correlations ofthe adolescent's and her part- and control that is most important. Differ-
ners' responses, and thus were multimethod entiating the exact nature of these distinc-
in themselves. tions requires further exploration.
The common framework helped iden- Moreover, it is also important to empha-
tify similarities and differences in predictors size that some results were different for the
of harmony across mother-adolescent and two relationships. Unlike harmonious
friendship relationships. Harmony in both mother-daughter relationships, harmonious
relationships was predicted by partners' per- friendships did not have higher levels of
ceptions that the other person was meeting common interests and activities. These re-
their socioemotional needs, and by the de- sults may reflect the fact that all best friends
gree of similarity of their needs. Regarding have common interests by virtue of being
observed interactional characteristics, har- adolescents and having chosen each other as
mony in both relationships was related to friends (Ball, 1981; Kandel, 1978). In fact,
partners displaying positive affect and the degree of similarity in interests in all
attunement, and being able to share power four groups of adolescents tended to be
appropriately. Due to the cross-sectional na- rather high (adolescent-friend interests,
ture of the present study, the causal direc- mean r = .47) and are higher than the re-
tions ofthese and other relations remain un- ports of similarity in interests of mother and
clear. For example, need fulfillment may daughter (mean r = .26).
facilitate harmony and/or vice versa.
Differences also occurred in the links
Although much of the literature on ado- between harmony and social skills in the
lescence emphasizes differences between two relationships. Both the mother's and
parent and peer relationships, the present daughter's ability to use cooperative social
results offer a contribution to the literature skills with one another were related to per-
by demonstrating that many of the findings ceived relationship harmony. This result
are not specific to one particular relation- was a robust one, being found in both the
ship. In fact, we suggest that explanations of self-report and the observational data. The
these findings should not be based on the social skills data within \he friendship rela-
special properties of one particular kind of tionship were less consistent. In ttie self-
relationship but, instead, should be based on report data, the adolescent's report of the
the common processes underlying friend- friends' social skills differentiated harmoni-
ships, mother-adolescent relationships, and ous and disharmonious dyads, but the
perhaps other close relationships. For exam- friend's report ofthe adolescent's skills did
ple, one could argue that positive affect is not. In the observational data, ratings ofthe
associated with friendship harmony because friends' cooperative social skills differenti-
positive affective exchanges foster close ties ated harmonious and disharmonious dyads,
between equals. However, the fact that posi- but ratings of the focal adolescents did not.
tive affect was also related to harmony in Although this inconsistency could indicate
mother-adolescent relationships indicates that social skills are less important within
that such positive affective exchanges play a the friendship domain, this explanation is
critical role in asymmetrical (parental) as implausible in light of other research (Asher
well as egalitarian (friendship) relationships. &Renshaw, 1981; Buhrmester, 1990). It may
In fact, expression of positive affect may be be that social skill and friendship harmony
a fundamental correlate of harmony across are not related in a linear fashion; instead,
many different kinds of relationships. it may only be important to have some mini-
mal level of soeial skill in order to have rela-
Although some of the processes within tively harmonious friendships.
these two relationships are similar, the vari-
ables may not be operationalized in the Alternatively, the social skills important
same way in asymmetrical versus egalitarian in an adolescent friendship may not be
relationships. For example, although power readily perceived by an outside observer or
management is important in both, one would may not have been tapped in the structured
expect friends to treat each other as equals, interactions employed in this study. Infor-
whereas equality of power between parent mal observations made during the study sug-
and adolescent is probably not expected by gested that adolescent girls' overt behaviors
either partner. Instead, it may be the par- and how they behaved socially were not al-
ent's ability to negotiate with the adolescent ways concordant with their reports of har-Gavin and Furman 385
mony in the friendship. There appeared to though our recruiting strategy was designed
be some pressures within the friendship in- to include a wide range of relationships
teractions to "be nice" and not confront con- within a nonclinical sample. Third, the work
flict directly, whereas in the mother- is cross-sectional, thereby preventing us
daughter interactions, conflict was discussed from specifying the direction of effects be-
openly. Whether or not the adolescents were tween perceptions of harmony and the vari-
consciously aware of any difficulties in their ous factors examined. Longitudinal work
friendships, or whether they intentionally would also help us understand the nature of
disguised difficulties is an interesting ques- the links between parent-child relationships
tion for interactional researchers that de- and peer relationships. One should also
serves further investigation. not misinterpret the absence of cross-
relationship effects (e.g., the lack of differ-
Finally, several observational variables ences in the friendships of harmonious and
were only associated with reports of har- disharmonious mother-daughter dyads). The
mony in one of the two relationships. For inclusion of a relatively equal number of ad-
example, problem-solving ability was re- olescents in the four cells has the statistical
lated to relationship harmony with mother, effect of essentially eliminating any relation
but not friends. Compared to peer dyads, between harmony in mother-daughter dyads
mothers and daughters are likely to have and harmony in friendships.
more experience and spend more energy
discussing problems and working out day-to- One interesting aspect of this study is
day hassles, perhaps making it a more impor- the inclusion of girls with relatively dishar-
tant skill within this domain. In contrast, the monious best friendships. Although it was
management of jealousy was not related to beyond the scope ofthe present study to in-
harmony within the mother-daughter rela- vestigate this group in depth, it represents
tionship, but it was in the adolescent friend- an interesting subpopulation of girls who
ship. Girls who saw both relationships as choose to remain in what they acknowledge
harmonious were significantly less jealous are relatively conflictual, unsupportive best
and had friends who displayed less jealousy friendships. It would be interesting to study
than girls who only saw their relationships girls with this pattern of peer relationships
with their mothers to be harmonious. These more closely.
latter girls may be less secure socially, per-
haps because they are more identified with These limitations notwithstanding, pres-
adults than with peers. The fact that this ent results underscore the importance of look-
group of girls was also the least able to dis- ing at relationships in the broad social con-
play positive affect and have fun with text and with multiple methods. It is our hope
friends may reflect a pseudo-adult quality that the framework presented in this study
that may be less attractive to peers. will extend the current literature on adoles-
cent relationships by providing one way to
More generally, fewer variables were understand harmony in a range of different
significantly related to perceptions of friend- relationships.
ship harmony than to perceptions of mother-
daughter harmony. This difference was par-
ticularly true for the measures completed by
the friend and mother. Perhaps mothers are References
more accurate or insightful reporters be- Asher, S. R., & Renshaw, P. D. (1981). Children
cause they have known their daughters without friends: Social knowledge and social
longer and more intimately. In addition, skill training. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman
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