The role of self-disclosure in buffering negative feelings within adolescent friendships

Friendship serves a variety of functions throughout development and can buffer the effects of negative experiences through self-disclosure, the communication of emotions. Participants were 140 adolescents (51% male, M =12.95 years old) that completed surveys examining the buffering of negative life events, global self-worth, and relationships with their best friend in a correlational design. It was hypothesized that buffered feelings from negative experiences would mediate the relationship between self-disclosure and global self-worth, particularly for girls. Findings indicated levels of self-disclosure and buffered feelings from negative experiences were not associated with increased global self-worth. Gender differences were found between ratings of friendship and buffered feelings of different types of negative experiences, favoring girls. In addition, the overall model of self-disclosure and buffering of negative experiences together affected global self-worth for boys. Challenges in measurement of buffered feelings from negative experiences and global self-worth are discussed