Keywords

Cross informant ratings; adolescent informants; friend informants

Abstract

Although teacher and parent informants often are used to gather information regarding adolescents* emotional and behavioral functioning, research has suggested that agreement among these raters and adolescents* self-ratings tends to be low to moderate. Given that friends typically play an important role in the lives of adolescents, the present study sought to determine the relative agreement amongst adolescent self-reports and those of their friends as well as factors that might impact this agreement. In particular, 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.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2015

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Renk, Kimberly

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology; Clinical Psychology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005824

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005824

Language

English

Release Date

August 2020

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences; Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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