Navigating the transition to junior high school: The influence of pre-transition friendship and self-system characteristics

The present study examined the influence of pre-transition friendship and self-system characteristics on junior high school transition adjustment in a sample of 111 early adolescent girls and boys. Transition adjustment was defined in terms of youth's post-transition friendship quality, emotional distress, and school adjustment. Pre-transition friendship characteristics were directly linked with both post-transition friendship quality and school adjustment, while youth's expected possible selves, a component of youth's self-system, made additional unique contributions to the prediction of youth's emotional distress and school adjustment. Results suggest the importance of developmentally salient friendship and self-system characteristics in contributing to individual variability in transition adaptation.