Validating a Measure of Friends’ Responses to Self-Disclosure in Adolescent Obese and Public School Samples

The goal of the current study was to validate a new measure of the friendship self-disclosure process that assesses the likelihood of disclosing a negative peer experience and expectations for friends’ responses to disclosure (EFRD) of this experience. Participants for Study 1 were 572 adolescents (age M = 14.82; 53% female; 66% Caucasian) from a public school sample who completed the self-disclosure survey and a measures of depressive symptoms at one time point. Participants of Study 2 comprised 180 obese adolescents (age M = 12.78; 67% female; 58% African American) from an urban children’s hospital. The obese sample completed the self-disclosure survey, as well as measures of friendship quality, peer victimization, and depressive symptoms at two time points, 6 months apart. For both studies, 3 dimensions of EFRD were examined: protection, blame, and negative responses. Each EFRD dimension was replicated across 2 samples, over time, and had good interitem reliability as well as convergent and discriminan...