Colloquium Series

Friendship in Adolescence: A Lifeline or a Load?
Rebecca Schwartz-Mette, MSSW, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology
University at Buffalo
rmette@buffalo.edu
Colloquium Date: April 22, 2025
Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. ET
Location: Online via Zoom
Friendships are crucial relationships during adolescence, affording youth many socioemotional benefits, including mitigating risk for the development of mental health challenges. Ironically, however, youth in distress who may benefit most from supportive friendships tend to experience the erosion of these social supports over time, triggering a problematic cycle of distress and rejection. Moreover, those friends who do stay close with distressed youth are actually at increased risk for developing mental health problems themselves. This talk will review the protective benefits of adolescent friendships, as well as the risks associated with certain types of friendships.
Attendees will be able to:
Identify the protective benefits of close friendships in adolescence
Understand mechanisms at work in the depression-rejection cycle
Explore processes that help to explain the socialization (or "contagion") of distress
Examine the socioemotional tradeoffs of unique friendship processes in adolescence

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