This project is a continuation of our earlier work on children’s and adolescents’ friendships (the NAVIGATE project – described below), in which we followed Utena students’ relationships with friends and parents over several years. Now we are taking the next step: we aim to understand why some adolescents are more vulnerable to peer influence while others remain more independent, and when that influence is helpful (for example, encouraging kindness and helping others) or risky (for example, supporting harmful habits, skipping classes, or behavior problems). The project includes students from primary school through upper secondary school, allowing us to see how sensitivity to peers’ opinions changes as young people grow and move into new classes and schools.

In this study, we combine students’ own reports about their well-being, behavior, and relationships with information from their classmates about each other. This helps us see more clearly under what conditions peer influence becomes especially strong, and for which young people it is more dangerous or, on the contrary, most supportive. Based on these insights, we will develop clear, practical recommendations for parents, teachers, and professionals to help them recognize risks early, strengthen safe and supportive relationships in classrooms, and help adolescents make decisions that are in their best interest.

The project is funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-MIP-25-82. Psychosocial factors of susceptibility to peer influence and possible consequences in the context of contemporary challenges (NAVIGATE+).

NAVIGATE project: Navigating Through Secondary School: The Role of Friends and Parents

Friendships play a significant role in development, especially during the challenging transition from primary school to middle school.

Successful adjustment is predicated on participation in successful friendships. As children navigate the difficult transition from primary school to secondary school, they rely on friends for support, companionship, and guidance. However, children suffer in the absence of friends, and studies show that depression, anxiety, and victimization are common among the friendless. Friendlessness arises not only from the inability to make friends but also from the failure to retain them. Yet conclusions about friendship instability must be tempered by limitations inherent in a literature dominated by two-wave longitudinal studies. How and why friendships end is not well understood. Equally unclear are the effects of friendship dissolution and the circumstances in which it threatens well-being.

The main goal of the NAVIGATE was to identify antecedents for and consequences of friendship dissolution. In order to achieve this aim, the study was implemented in a two-step procedure: (1) Identify the antecedents of friendship dissolution, and (2) describe the adjustment consequences of friendship dissolution.

About the project directly from researchers

This project has received funding from European Social Fund (project No 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-17-0009) under grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).