Perceived friendship network of socially anxious adolescent girls

Abstract

In this study we investigated how social anxiety and expressed friendship relate to the perceived friendship network of adolescent girls. We define an expressed friendship as a friendship choice made by an individual, and a perceived friend as one whom the individual perceives as choosing them as a friend; expressed and perceived friends need not be the same. We applied Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to understand effects of social anxiety and expressed friendship on structural patterns of the perceived friendship network, aiming to shed light how social anxiety and expressed friendship choices relate to cognitive perceptions of the social environment (in terms of perceived friendsh..