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Cross-Ethnic Friendships, Intergroup Attitudes, Intragroup Social Costs, and Depressive Symptoms among Asian-American and Latino-American Youth

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

As American school districts become increasingly diverse, understanding the processes that promote positive intergroup relations is a critical task. The role of cross-ethnic friendships is one important factor, given the significance of these reciprocated peer relationships for social development. The current study examines the short-term longitudinal impact of cross-ethnic friendships on peer group attitudes and emotional adjustment. 524 student participants (54.8% female; Mage = 15.06 years, SD = 0.75; 47% Latino, 53% Asian-American) were followed for one year with two spring data collections. Students completed a self-report inventory assessing depressive symptoms and a peer nomination inventory assessed friendship, liking, disliking, popularity, and unpopularity. Cross-ethnic friendships were predictive of positive attitudes toward peers from other ethnic/racial groups and were also linked to declines in depressive symptoms for boys. Moreover, these positive effects did not come at a social cost, as cross-ethnic friendships were not associated with rejection by same-ethnic peers. Cross-ethnic friendships provide a unique environment that contributes to positive intergroup attitudes and beneficial socioemotional development for some youth.

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Notes

  1. We are reporting models with transformed variables, as this is the most conservative approach considering the peer nomination and self-report data were skewed. However, preliminary analyses conducted prior to transforming the variables showed a similar pattern of results.

  2. In our pilot analyses, we ran linear regression models, separately predicting intergroup and intragroup attitudes at Y2 from Y1 cross-ethnic friendships, including Y1 stability variable, ethnicity, gender, and ethnic identity as control variables. Entry of those variables had no impact on the pattern of results.

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Authors’ Contributions

AK conceived of the study design, performed statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript; LM helped draft and revise manuscript content and provided interpretation of the results; SM contributed to the study design and analysis and provided critical revision of the manuscript; DB, MD, and DS participated in the study design and coordination and made substantial contributions to data acquisition and design conception; DS provided critical revisions for intellectual content, performed statistical analyses, and provided interpretation of the results. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 501 Seeley G. Mudd, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Annemarie Kelleghan, Luiza Mali, Sarah Malamut & David Schwartz

  2. Child Mind Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Daryaneh Badaly

  3. Committee for Children, Seattle, WA, USA

    Mylien Duong

Authors
  1. Annemarie Kelleghan
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  2. Luiza Mali
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  3. Sarah Malamut
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  4. Daryaneh Badaly
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  5. Mylien Duong
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  6. David Schwartz
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Correspondence to Annemarie Kelleghan.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional review board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Parental consent and youth assent were obtained from all participants included in the study.

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Kelleghan, A., Mali, L., Malamut, S. et al. Cross-Ethnic Friendships, Intergroup Attitudes, Intragroup Social Costs, and Depressive Symptoms among Asian-American and Latino-American Youth. J Youth Adolescence 48, 2165–2178 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01143-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01143-7

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