Friendship and happiness in adolescence

Abstract

Despite both significant attention to the contributions of adolescents’ friendships to their adjustment and considerable research on the role of close relationships in adults’ happiness, happiness has rarely been considered as an antecedent or consequence of adolescents’ experiences with their friends. This chapter reviews the literature on associations between friendship and three components of happiness in adolescence—life satisfaction, the presence of positive affect, and the absence of negative affect. Having friends, friendship quality, and the characteristics of friends are most clearly linked with the negative affect dimension of happiness, specifically loneliness and depression. Nevertheless, there are positive associations between various aspects of friendship experiences and positive affect and life satisfaction. We suggest several directions for future research to further elucidate the connections between these developmentally significant relationships and adolescents’ subjective well-being.