Is Peer Adversity in Childhood and Adolescence Linked to Interpersonal Functioning in Adulthood? A Meta-analytic Review

This meta-analysis synthesizes research on longitudinal associations between child and adolescent peer adversity and various domains of adult interpersonal functioning. Meta-analyses were conducted on 220 effect sizes from 37 studies published between 1998 and 2024, unadjusted and adjusted for gender, socioeconomic status and childhood family adversity. Participants (Ntotal = 45,325, proportion of girls = 54.6%, average duration to follow-up = 11.5 years) in the 27 samples were primarily European or North American (k = 26). Peer adversity was linked to adult interpersonal functioning in unadjusted (r = -.15) and adjusted models (r = -.15), no robust moderators were found. These findings highlight the importance of mitigating a broad range of peer adversity to foster relational health in adulthood.