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Much has been written about the low self-esteem of adolescent girls relative to adolescent boys, but little research has explored the role that friendship quality may play in affecting self-esteem. Ninety-seven female and 67 male 11 th and 12th graders completed measures of self-esteem and of friendship quality with both same- and cross-gender best friends. Ninety-five percent of the participants were White, and ranged across the socioeconomic spectrum with the majority coming from middle-class families. We found that girls' self esteem was significantly lower than boys' self-esteem and that girls rated their relationships as stronger, more interpersonally rewarding, and more stressful than boys did. Boys reported that their friendship with their best female friend was more interpersonally rewarding than their friendship with their best male friend, whereas girls rated the quality of their same- and cross-gender friends similarly. As expected, girls' self-esteem was positively correlated with the friendship quality of their cross-gender best friend. However, their self-esteem was not correlated with the quality of their same-gender friendship. Boys' self-esteem did not correlate with the quality of their same- or cross-gender best friendship. Results may help us understand the relatively low self-esteem experienced by adolescent girls.
A large and often-cited study examining self-esteem in adolescence found a significant gender difference, favoring males (American Association of University Women, 1990). High-school-age students (15-18) showed the biggest gender difference, with the average male scoring a nontrivial .57 standard deviation above the average female. This study contributed to the popular conception that adolescent girls lose their self-esteem on the way to adolescence (Daley, 1991).
Although a gender difference in the self-esteem of adolescents has consistently been found, a recent meta-analytic review documents that the selfesteem difference may be rather small (Kling, Hyde, Shower, & Buswell, 1999). Reviewing 184 articles published over the past three decades, these researchers found that the average effect size was .21 (meaning that the average male scored just over one fifth of a standard deviation above the average female). The largest effect size (d = .33) was found during the high school years, followed by the middle school years (d = .23). Still smaller differences were found for the 7-10-year-olds (d = .16), 19-22-year-olds (d = .18), and 23-59-year-olds (d = .10). They found no...