Background

 The study draws on social capital and social networks theories to understand contextual factors linked to well-being and ill-being.

Aims

 The study aimed to examine how adolescents’ peer network attributes are linked to well-being and ill-being longitudinally.

Method

The study involved 1508 lower secondary students from Singapore who answered an online survey over three waves of data collection. Data collected include nomination of up to 10 close friends from the same cohort, psychological well-being using the Mental Health Continuum Scale and depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire. Social network analysis was conducted on students’ friendship nominations to generate values for the students’ peer network attributes such as outdegree centrality (i.e., number of nominated close friends), indegree centrality (i.e., number of received friendship nominations) and number of reciprocated friendships. Latent growth curve modeling was performed to examine the change trajectories of outcomes, which are psychological well-being and depressive symptoms; and predictors, which are the peer network attributes. Using this analytic approach, we investigated whether individual differences in change of peer network attributes predict the changes in psychological well-being and depressive symptoms over time.

Results

The results of the study show that baseline outdegree centrality negatively predicted changes in psychological well-being over time: higher outdegree centrality predicted the decrease in psychological well-being over time. We did not find significant results suggesting that the changes in students’ peer network attributes (outdegree centrality and number of reciprocated friendships) predict the changes in psychological well-being over time. We also found that total reciprocated friendships predicted the longitudinal change in depressive symptoms: An increase in total reciprocated friendships predicted a decrease in depressive symptoms over time. 

Conclusion

Adolescents' peer networks influence their well-being and illbeing in varied ways: Having more perceived close friends may not necessarily lead to higher levels of wellbeing;  having more reciprocated friendships is linked to reduction in levels of ill-being but not linked to increase in level of well-being.