Brief report: How anxiously withdrawn preadolescents think about friendship

Previous research suggests that anxiously withdrawn preadolescents demonstrate success in forming friendships, yet these friendships tend to be of lesser quality. Drawing on Selman’s (1980) theory of interpersonal understanding, we compared levels of friendship understanding between anxiously withdrawn preadolescents and a sample of non-withdrawn age mates. Fifth graders (N = 116; 58% girls; mean age = 10.33 yrs) completed same-sex friendship and social behavior nominations, as well as a semi-structured clinical interview assessing understanding of various friendship issues in response to a hypothetical friendship dilemma. Results suggest that anxiously withdrawn preadolescents demonstrated lower levels of friendship understanding for some, but not all, friendship issues that may be related to friendship quality. The findings suggest that social cognitive assessments of friendship may be useful in understanding the friendship successes and difficulties of anxiously withdrawn preadolescents.