Adolescents' Daily Experience with Family and Friends: Contrasting Opportunity Systems

This paper compares adolescents' experience in daily interactions with family and friends. A stratified random sample of 75 high school students provided self-reports at random times during their regular lives, including 1,236 occasions in these two primary social contexts. When with their friends, these adolescents reported a situation more conducive to enjoyment than that occurring with their families: they felt more open and free, feedback was positive, and talk was joking. However, those adolescents who spent more time with friends than with family showed poorer school performance and wider mood variability. The findings suggest that friendship interactions are experienced as positive feedback systems, having a high potential for fluid interchange but also lower homeostasis and a propensity to get out of control. In comparison, adolescents' family interactions appear more like negative feedback systems, being constrained by family maintenance requirements and goals of formal socialization.