Beschreibung:
<jats:p> Girls' and boys' peer relationships are thought to have unique strengths and weaknesses. However, developmentalists have done a better job of identifying strengths of girls' friendships than boys' friendships. The present research was aimed at better understanding boys' friendship strengths. The study focused on the frequency with which youth ( N = 514) reported that they would prompt a friend to talk about problems. It was hypothesized that boys would be more likely than girls to refrain from prompting friends to talk about problems due to prosocial motivations (e.g., not wanting to embarrass the friend; wanting to distract the friend). However, contrary to predictions, girls' motivations were more prosocial and less selfish than were boys' motivations. Moreover, a similar relation was found for boys and girls between their likelihood of prompting a friend to talk about problems and their friends' reports of emotional connection. Implications for research aimed at uncovering boys' friendship strengths are discussed. </jats:p>