Announcing the Final Examination of Brea-Anne Lauer for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Psychology - Clinical

Monday, July 6, 2015 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
This study
investigated the relative agreement amongst adolescent self-reports and those
of their friends as well as factors that might impact this agreement. 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.


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Location:

Psychology Building: 301H


Calendar:

Psychology Department Calendar

Category:

Academic

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