Friendship and Informant Characteristics Associated with Agreement among Adolescent and Friend Ratings of Behavior Problems.

Although teacher and parent informants often are used to gather information regarding adolescents* emotional and behavioral functioning, research has suggested that agreement among these raters and adolescents* self-ratings tends to be low to moderate. Given that friends typically play an important role in the lives of adolescents, the present study sought to determine the relative agreement amongst adolescent self-reports and those of their friends as well as factors that might impact this agreement. In particular, a sample of 207 culturally diverse high school students were matched based on perceived friendship closeness and asked to provide ratings of their own emotional and behavioral problems as well as that of an identified friend. Additionally, adolescents provided information regarding their friendship quality, previous exposure to psychopathology in others, and social competence as well as their endorsements for etiological attributions for friends* behavior. Results revealed that adolescent self-ratings and those of their friends demonstrate high levels of agreement for both internalizing and externalizing problems. Further, raters* emotional and behavioral problems were related inconsistently to rating agreement, whereas friendship quality and other rater characteristics (i.e., previous exposure, social competence) did not demonstrate a relationship. Additionally, friends tended to provide explanations for behavior problems that varied according to the type of behavior observed. Specifically, adolescents were more likely to provide explanations that were external in nature for internalizing symptoms, whereas explanations for externalizing symptoms were both internal and external. Overall, this study provided additional support for the utility of friend informants when ratings of adolescents* emotional and behavioral problems are needed.

Author dc:creator

• Lauer, Brea-anne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Renk, Kimberly

• Cross informant ratings; adolescent informants; friend informants
• Clinical Psychology
• Psychology
• Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences; Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

CFE0005824

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-2225