Antecedents and consequences of helping among adolescents

The onset of adolescence is a challenging period in life, given that adolescents face a myriad of social, cognitive, and biological developments. Adolescents usually do not confront these challenges on their own, but they seek help from their social network. Classmates play an important role herein, but there is only little knowledge about help relations among adolescents. In her dissertation, Loes van Rijsewijk provides answers to questions such as who helps whom; what does a help network look like; and what are the consequences of help? To map out help networks, 1000-1600 adolescents were asked to identify classmates who help them with problems. This approach added novel insights to the existing body of knowledge on adolescent help behavior. Amongst others, Loes found that experiencing problems and seeking help for these problems is common; that help behavior is selective, that is, asked from or directed primarily towards similar peers and friends, that tendencies towards giving and receiving help vary over friendships and contexts; and that help has outcomes for social embeddedness, achievement, and depressive symptoms. Together, these results form a first, important step towards unraveling adolescents’ help networks.