Dynamics of Adolescent Friendships: The Interplay between Structure and Gender

This study investigates the network characteristics of adolescent friendship networks and the interaction between network characteristics and gender. Two competing hypotheses for closure and openness are derived and tested. Adolescents might strive for network closure, because this facilitates trust and trustworthiness among their friends. However, openness can also be beneficial because it facilitates establishing multi-layered identities and finding novel ideas for school tasks. The hypothesis for interaction between structure and gender is derived from the argument that gender influences the criteria for seeking and making friends during adolescence. SIENA is used to estimate the effects of network and individual characteristics on friendship formation. The data consists of longitudinal friendship nominations of 410 Taiwanese adolescents. We find that adolescents have a tendency to establish friendships that increase network closure. This tendency is stronger for male than for female adolescents in single-gender classes. On the contrary, the tendency towards network closure is stronger for female than for male adolescents in mixed-gender classes.