Brief report: Associations of parental warmth, peer support, and gender with adolescent emotional distress

This is an exploratory study of the associations among parental warmth, peer support, gender, and emotional distress in a sample of 308 adolescents in the United States. Parental warmth was associated with less emotional distress, whereas turning to peers for support during family conflict was associated with more emotional distress. Gender moderated these associations in multivariate analyses. Emotional distress was highest among females who reported low levels of parental warmth and who turned to peers for support, in comparison with females who also turned to peers for support but had higher parental warmth. Findings contribute to a growing literature on contextual factors associated with adolescent psychosocial well-being.