Young Adult Adaptability to the Social Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Protective Role of Friendships.
The continuing COVID-19 pandemic enables assessment of the adaptability of young adults to non-normative stressors threatening their social-emotional wellbeing. Focusing specifically on a developmentally critical social challenge of restricted in-person contact, the goal of the current study was to...
| Published in: | Journal of Youth & Adolescence Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 585 - 598 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Mar2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=155468036&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 155468036 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00472891 JYA jtl: Journal of Youth & Adolescence issn: 00472891 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2022 vid: 51 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 155468036 10.1007/s10964-022-01573-w ppf: 585 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 644KB tig: atl: Young Adult Adaptability to the Social Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Protective Role of Friendships. aug: au: Juvonen, Jaana Lessard, Leah M. Kline, Naomi G. Graham, Sandra affil: University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA su: Young adults Adaptability (Personality) COVID-19 pandemic Social history Friendship Well-being Emotions Loneliness Social anxiety Mental depression Social skills Cisgender people Regression analysis Surveys Descriptive statistics Longitudinal method sug: subj: Young adults Adaptability (Personality) COVID-19 pandemic Social history Friendship Well-being Emotions Loneliness Social anxiety Mental depression Social skills Cisgender people Regression analysis Surveys Descriptive statistics Longitudinal method ab: The continuing COVID-19 pandemic enables assessment of the adaptability of young adults to non-normative stressors threatening their social-emotional wellbeing. Focusing specifically on a developmentally critical social challenge of restricted in-person contact, the goal of the current study was to examine the role of friendships in alleviating social-emotional problems. Data were collected via online surveys from an ethnically diverse sample (n = 1557) of 20 to 24-year-olds (62% cisgender female, 31% male, 7% gender diverse or gender questioning) in spring of 2021. Longitudinal data from an earlier time point involving an age-normative social challenge (transition out of high school) were used as a comparison. The comparisons between the transition from high school and the pandemic showed that whereas social anxiety and depressive symptoms increased, loneliness decreased. Participants also reported having slightly more friends and rated the overall quality of their friendships as somewhat higher. Regression analyses revealed that a greater number of friends over time and greater satisfaction with friend electronic communication during the pandemic were most robustly related to lower social and generalized anxiety as well as depressive symptoms, over and above earlier social-emotional wellbeing and a number of relevant correlates. Loneliness was protected by higher quality of friendships, greater contact with friends, as well as more frequent and satisfying electronic communication with friends. The results suggest that although young adults are facing emotional challenges during the continued pandemic, they are also able to adapt by keeping in touch with friends to decrease subjective sense of isolation. The findings have novel intervention implications to reduce loneliness. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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