(PS9-A13) Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together?: Anxiety Similarity in the Friendships of Young Adults

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychological disorders among young adults (Pedrelli et al., 2014). Past studies have shown that peer contagion can be an important mechanism for the onset and maintenance of anxiety symptoms in this age group. For instance, in college-aged adults, anxiety correlated or transferred between friends or roommates (Eisenberg et al., 2013; Joiner, 1994). However, there has been limited research on potential moderators of such associations. For instance, the degree of anxiety similarly might be greater in longer standing and closer friendships. In addition, few studies have examined moderating effects of attachment, despite its importance in individuals’ interpersonal relationships. Existing studies have also mostly relied on single informant-report (i.e., by one friend), which may limit generalizability of findings. The present study used a multi-informant design to examine the association between young adults and their friends’ anxiety symptoms and whether the association was moderated by friendship duration, closeness, and participant’s attachment’s styles. 

389 young adults (82% female, 74% White, Mage = 18.68, range = 18-26) were recruited from the undergraduate subject pool and the community. They nominated up to 3 friends and reported on the duration and closeness of each friendship. Participants also completed the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire-IV (GAD-Q-IV; Newman et al., 2002) and the Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structure (ECR-RS; Fraley et al., 2011), which assess attachment-related anxiety and avoidance. 656 friend informants (M = 1.7 informants per participant) completed the GAD-Q-IV to report on their own anxiety symptoms. 

Linear regressions were conducted with the participant’s GAD-Q-IV scores as an outcome. Given the nesting of friend informants within participants, friend-level predictors were averaged to the participant-level, and robust standard errors were used. This approach performed well when predicting higher-level outcomes in multilevel data based on simulations (Foster-Johnson & Kromley, 2018). Results showed that a friend’s anxiety significantly predicted a participant’s anxiety, β = .15, t(381) = 3.01, p = .003. Friendship duration, but not closeness, significantly moderated this association. As the duration increased, the degree of anxiety similarity between participants and friends increased, β = .002, t(377) = 1.99, p = .047. Participants’ attachment-related anxiety and avoidance did not show significant moderation effects, but they predicted greater participant anxiety, ps < .001. 

We replicated previous findings of anxiety similarity in friend dyads based on multi-informant data. Anxiety similarity between friends increased as a function of friendship duration. Based on simple slope analyses, anxiety similarity effect was observed only in friendships of 4 or longer years, suggesting that this effect might be specific to longer-term friendships. Given their cross-sectional nature, current findings await replication using a longitudinal design.