7.4. Longitudinal influences of nominated best friends’ behavior
The current study did not find any significant longitudinal effects of nominated best friends’ behavior at T1 on change in target child's antisocial or prosocial behavior one year later. This lack of apparent socializing influence contrasts with previous studies by Snyder et al. (1997) and Hanish et al. (2005) that found more frequent association with aggressive and externalizing peers, respectively, predicted increases in observed and teacher-rated aggression among preschoolers over a 3-month period. There are several possible reasons for the lack of longitudinal findings in the current study. One is the length of time between the original and follow-up assessments. There have been no previous studies of young children that examined friends’ influence over periods longer than three months. The instability of young children's friendships relative to older children (Newcomb and Bagwell, 1995), and the finding of the current study that only one third of the best friends nominated at T1 were nominated by the same children again at T2, suggests that young children do not maintain a consistent perception of their close friendships over long periods of time. This may result, potentially, in a dilution of the long-term influence of specific relationships.