The current research considered the costs of caring in youths' friendships. The development of a new construct, empathetic distress, allowed for a direct test of the commonly held belief that females suffer greater vicarious distress in response to close others' stressors and problems than do males. Empathetic distress refers to one's strongly sharing a relationship partner's distress over problems to the point of taking on the partner's distress and experiencing it as one's own. This new construct was examined in an ethnically diverse sample of early adolescents who responded to a series of questionnaires in their classrooms. Results indicated that girls did experience greater empathetic distress in friendships than did boys. In addition, the current research revealed that social perspective taking in friendships (i.e., the social-cognitive ability to infer and understand the friend's perspective) had adjustment trade-offs in that it predicted greater positive friendship quality but also greater empathetic distress in the friendship. Interestingly, the associations of social perspective taking with both positive friendship quality and empathetic distress were partially mediated by co-rumination or excessive discussion of problems. Applied implications of the findings that girls' greater social perspective taking and associated co-rumination contributed both to their greater positive friendship quality but also to greater costs of caring in the form of empathetic distress are discussed.

Research supports the notion that adolescents’ mental health is impacted by peers via contagion processes. A growing area of interest has been how co-rumination may influence depressive symptoms within friendships. The current study examined particular conditions under which co-rumination is especially likely to facilitate depression contagion. Participants were adolescents (N = 480, 49% female, M age = 14.6 years, 59.5% European American) paired in friendship dyads and assessed over 9 months. Characteristics of the adolescent (personal distress), of the friend (excessive reassurance seeking), and of the friendship (friendship quality) were considered. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that co-rumination facilitated depression contagion only under conditions of adolescents’ high personal distress, friends’ high excessive reassurance seeking, and high positive friendship quality. This research underscores the importance of attending to how and under what conditions depression contagion occurs within friendships in order to support adolescents’ positive social and emotional development.

Developmental theories posit that social perspective-taking, the social-cognitive process of adopting another person’s viewpoint to understand the person’s thoughts and feelings, is important for youths’ successful functioning in close relationships, yet this idea has received little empirical attention. Guided by a social-emotional adjustment trade-offs framework, the current study tested the proposal that adolescents’ (N = 300, M age = 14.76) social perspective-taking would be linked with positive aspects of friendship in terms of friendship quality but also maladaptive aspects of friendship, namely co-rumination (i.e., excessive problem discussion between friends). This study used a multi-method design including surveys, laboratory tasks, and observations and extended past work by considering multiple dimensions of social perspective-taking including ability, tendency, and accuracy. Results provided support for friendship adjustment trade-offs of social perspective-taking.

Ethnic and racial bias peaks during middle childhood. The development of internal motivation to respond without prejudice (IMRWP, i.e., a desire to act according to internalized beliefs about equality) and external motivation to respond without prejudice (EMRWP, i.e., the desire to appear non-prejudicial in order to avoid social censure or rejection) may help to reduce children’s racial bias. However, IMRWP and EMRWP have almost exclusively been studied among adults. The current review seeks to situate IMRWP and EMRWP research within established developmental psychological theories in order to provide a framework for needed research in this area. We describe how peer norms may contribute to or hinder internal and external MRWP development over the course of middle childhood. We consider same- and cross-ethnicity/race friendships as possible sources of IMRWP development. Finally, we address the potential for schools to contribute to both IMRWP and EMRWP development through policies that emphasize intergroup contact and education about race and racism. Given the urgent threat that ethnic and racial prejudice poses to society, better understanding the development of motivations to respond without prejudice from early in life is critical.