Methods stress scale was used which included 12
The study contained 490 adolescents, 160 of
which were boys and 245 were girls, and 4
were unaccounted for (Graber et al., 2015). All
of the participants were British and between the
ages of 11-19 years of age and lived in areas
which had low social-economic status (Graber
et al., 2015). The participants were from 3
potential schools which were all in areas which
had moderately high levels of child poverty
(Graber et al., 2015). The participants
completed a questionnaire which consisted of 5
measures in total (Graber et al., 2015). The first
measure that was studied was Perceived
Friendship Quality where the participants were
asked to select a close friend who was not a
family member or intimate partner and rate
their friendship that they have using the McGill
Friendship Function Questionnaire (Graber et
al., 2015). This questionnaire contains 30
questions where they rate each question by 0-9
which ranges from “never” to “always (Graber
et al., 2015). The other measurement is
resilience which is measured by using a 25-
item questionnaire which has a 7-point scale
with ‘strongly disagree’ on one end of the
spectrum and ‘strongly agree’ (Graber et al.,
2015). Identifying the differences between
school-groups was another measurement which
was done by a one-way ANOVA (Graber et al.,
2015). Sex, family support, and developmental
stage were looked at by using a 4-item scale
which assesses family support and to determine
developmental stage participants were either
deemed as late or early (Graber et al., 2015).
The last measure used the self-esteem scale
which included 10 questions and were
answered through using a 4-item scale, coping
was looked at by using BRIEF COPE which is
28-items and rate using a 4-item scale
regarding how they would cope to situations
(Graber et al., 2015). Additionally, a perceived
Review of “Best friends are better:
questions and used 4-point scale to measure
their stress level in situations (Graber et al.,
2015). Self-efficacy was measured as well as
one’s self construct (Graber et al., 2015).
Results
The results showed that having a close and
strong friendship causes a higher psychological
resilience as well as their friends that they
perceived as close were perceived as fulfilling
and supportive (Graber et al., 2015).
Specifically, close friendships help with
resilience in socio-economic adolescents
through their coping style which used support
seeking, encouraging effort, using supportive
friendship and reducing internalizing coping
(Graber et al., 2015).
Implications
The implications and future research that
should be done regarding these findings are that
researchers should continue to conduct further
research regarding how relationships between
adolescence can positively impact them. What
researchers could also do is conduct research
that uses participants that are younger than the
participants that were used in this study. For
instance, future research could look at
participants that are between the ages of 6-10
for instance to see whether the findings would
be the same or could even look at older
individuals in their 20’s.
coping: Facilitating psychological
resilience through boy’s and girl’s
closest friendships”
Written by: Courtney Skrebiec
The researchers conducted this study because
they wanted to see whether adolescences with
friendships are overall better at coping which in
turn can create psychological resilience which
is why they constructed this study (Graber,
Turner, & Madill, 2015). Although there have
been studies previously done on research like
this, they wanted to study solely on one
friendship per adolescents as well as look at
how it can create resilience through different
psychological mechanisms (Graber et al.,
2015).
Who it Benefits
People who benefit from this finding is parents
of adolescents because it can encourage
adolescents to build friendships as well as
encourage parents to promote friendship
building. This would also be beneficial towards
social workers or teachers since they deal with
children who may have issues so having
friendships can cause resilience to those. These
findings should benefit individuals who are
around children regularly whether that is any of
the occupations listed above or any that are not
listed.
 Work Cited

Graber, R., Turner, R., & Madill, A. (2015). Best friends and better coping: Facilitating

psychological resilience through boys’ and girls’ closest friendships. British Journal of

Psychology, 107(2), 338-358. doi:10.1111/bjop.12135