Do friendships provide a training ground for adolescents’ romantic relationships?
Category: Research Summaries
Jul
15
If Friendship Is A Training Ground For Romantic Relationships, What Happens To Teens With Low Quality Friendships?
How do adolescents learn to form high quality romantic relationships? There are no doubt many factors, but friends may be a particularly important influence as interactions with friends provide a “training ground” for the development of skills that adolescents will need for romantic relationships. An exploration of the influence of friendships on romantic relationships is especially important because the quality of adolescents’ romantic relationships have been associated with a sense of self-worth, mental health status, and well-being (see here, here, here, and here), for better or for worse.