Since kindergarten, we have the innate desire to turn strangers we like into friends. Friends accompany us the longest of any interpersonal relationship throughout our lives and are seen as pivotal...Show moreSince kindergarten, we have the innate desire to turn strangers we like into friends. Friends accompany us the longest of any interpersonal relationship throughout our lives and are seen as pivotal to making our time on earth worthwhile. The study delves into the best friendships of young adults and investigates whether the participant’s best-friend relationship significantly contributes to their mental well-being. This paper explored this relationship by extracting selected questionnaires from an extensive master ́s research project with the participation of 214 young adults between 16 to 25 years of age. The Network Relationship Inventory (NRI) questionnaire was used to determine the quality of the best-friend relationship, while the Strengths and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ) assessed mental well-being. The results indicated a significant linear relationship between subjective well-being and relationship quality with your best friend. Therefore, this study concludes that finding yourself in a mutually supportive relationship benefits psychosocial functioning. However, the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the lack of inclusion of other external factors and a sample size mainly derived from a Dutch population.Show less
