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High-quality adolescent friendships may come at a cost for youth with shared deviant values

The types of friendships adolescents have often reflect their childhood relationships and predict how they do in the future. In a new study, researchers found that antisocial teenagers’ friendships tend to involve less listening, eye contact, and responsiveness, and that these teens spend more time talking about deviant topics such as substance abuse and breaking the law. However, when these adolescents are in friendships in which they interact more closely, they tend to have higher incidences of problem behavior.