Young adolescents' patterns of involvement with siblings and friends

We identified different patterns in young adolescents' experiences with the ir siblings and their friends and investigated the connections between thes e relationship patterns and both young adolescents' psychosocial functionin g and the characteristics of their family and neighborhood contexts. Partic ipants were 141 families, including mothers, fathers, young adolescents (M = 11.4 years), and their younger siblings (M = 8.3 years). Cluster analysis revealed three groups of young adolescents.. (I) high intimacy and involve ment with sibling, high intimacy with friend but low involvement with frien ds ('Differentiated'); (2) high intimacy and involvement with friend but no r sibling ('Incongruent'); and (3) low involvement and intimacy, with both sibling and friend ('Congruent'). The Congruent pattern was associated with young adolescents' personal characteristics and their parent-adolescent re lationship experiences. In contrast, the Incongruent and Differentiated pro files were linked to contextual factors (i.e., family and neighborhood reso urces). Findings suggest that individual differences exist in the associati ons between young adolescents' relationships with siblings and friends.