Abstract

The goal of the current study was to investigate emerging adults’ help-seeking from friends as one of the adaptive coping strategies in stressful social situations. Participants included 300 emerging adults who were currently enrolled in college (Mage = 23.28; 48.3% male). They self-reported their perceived goal structures, help-seeking from friends, and levels of friendship quality, anxious solitude, and social self-efficacy. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure of help-seeking from friends: Mastery and Avoidance. Structural equation modeling results indicated that individuals’ perceived goal structures were linked to different types of help-seeking from friends, and different types of help-seeking were associated with levels of friendship quality and anxious solitude. Further, mastery help-seeking from friends mediated the associations between perceived mastery goal structures and friendship quality. The results underscore that help-seeking from friends can be an adaptive coping strategy in stressful social situations and individuals’ perceptions of goal-related messages can have important implications for emerging adults’ help-seeking from friends.