Support-seeking about social relationships with friends is associated with friendship quality, emotional support, and self-disclosure in adolescence

Adolescent friendships offer a crucial context for learning to seek social support. Through repeated social support encounters, adolescents take in social information and shape their own development. The current study characterizes adolescents’ support-seeking discussion topics with close friends, how the topics are influenced by adolescent age and gender, and how they are related to interpersonal processes in close friendships. A community sample of 184 adolescents (85 boys, 99 girls; 58% white, 29% Black, 13% other identity groups) participated annually from age 13 to 18. Through these six waves of data collection, participants completed a total of 859 support-seeking interactions, from which 10 thematic codes were identified. Support-seeking about socially oriented topics (e.g., conflicts with peers, romantic interests) appeared consistently across adolescence, while participants increasingly discussed future-oriented topics (e.g., considering college or work plans) with their friends as they aged. Selection of socially oriented topics was more common among female dyads and was associated with higher friendship quality, self-disclosure, and emotional support in conversations between adolescent close friends.