Bidirectional Associations Between Friendship Quality, Subjective Well-Being and Loneliness Among Children: A Longitudinal Study

Liu Xu; Liu Yuxiao; Chen Qian; Cao Min; Peng Ji; Zhou Zongkui

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240407

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (4) : 819-828. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240407

Bidirectional Associations Between Friendship Quality, Subjective Well-Being and Loneliness Among Children: A Longitudinal Study

Liu Xu^1,2, Liu Yuxiao¹, Chen Qian¹, Cao Min¹, Peng Ji¹, Zhou Zongkui¹

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Abstract

The establishment of close friendships begins in childhood and is an important milestone in development. High-quality friendship is an essential force in promoting children's mental health development, which can improve children's subjective well-being and reduce loneliness. According to development contextualism, friendship is an important developmental context for children, which may have a bidirectional association with subjective well-being and loneliness. This bidirectional association has a long-term impact on children's development. To explore children's developmental trajectory, this study employed a longitudinal design spanning three years to examine the bidirectional relationship between children's friendship quality, subjective well-being, and loneliness.
A three-wave longitudinal study with one-year interval was conducted. A total of 212 third and fourth graders (M_age = 8.77 years, SD = .73; 59.4% male) in the central city completed questionnaires concerning friendship quality, subjective well-being, and loneliness. All the measures had good reliability and validity, and there was no serious common method bias. SPSS 25.0 was used to conduct descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. After completing item parceling, we constructed the random intercepts cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) in Mplus 8.3 and employed the full information maximum likelihood estimation (FIML) to deal with missing data. The RI-CLPM allows to separate between-person effects from within-person effects. It was used to investigate whether children with higher friendship quality might subsequently have higher subjective well-being and lower loneliness, and vice versa.
The results of the correlation analysis showed that children's friendship quality was positively associated with subjective well-being, and negatively associated with loneliness, both concurrently and longitudinally (ps < .001). The results of RI-CLPM indicated that, at the between-person level, the random-intercept factor for friendship quality was positively related to that for subjective well-being (r = .55, p < .05), but negatively related to that for loneliness (r = -.74, p < .01). After controlling for between-person stability, the within-person paths showed that the relationship between friendship quality and loneliness was reciprocal. More specifically, initial friendship quality significantly negatively predicted loneliness at Time 2 (β = -.24, 95%CI [-.422, -.053]), which in turn negatively predicted friendship quality at Time 3 (β = -.22, 95%CI [-.426, -.004]). Additionally, loneliness at Time 1 also negatively predicted friendship quality at Time 2 (β = -.26, 95%CI [-.498, -.015]). However, between friendship quality and subjective well-being, subjective well-being at Time 1 can significantly predict friendship quality at Time 2 (β = .34, 95%CI [.059, .620]), whereas cross-lagged paths of the reversed direction were not significant (ps > .05).
This study reveals the bidirectional associations between friendship quality and loneliness at the within-person level by adopting a longitudinal design and constructing the RI-CLPM. This contributes to methodological innovation for the circular effects research orientation emphasized by development contextualism. Furthermore, it suggests that we can simultaneously intervene in both friendship quality and loneliness to construct a positive cycle. Meanwhile, the different relationships between friendship quality, subjective well-being, and loneliness indicate the importance of time in understanding individual development. In general, this study broadens the understanding of the specific connections and dynamic changes between friendship and the development of children's mental health.

Key words

children / friendship / loneliness / subjective well-being / random intercept cross-lagged panel model

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Liu Xu, Liu Yuxiao, Chen Qian, Cao Min, Peng Ji, Zhou Zongkui. Bidirectional Associations Between Friendship Quality, Subjective Well-Being and Loneliness Among Children: A Longitudinal Study[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(4): 819-828 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240407

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