Adolescents' social strategies: patterns and correlates.

An unselected sample of adolescents (n= 504) was given a test measuring their social strategies in affiliative context, and emotional and behavioral problems. Four groups of adolescents were identified according to the certain patterns of the social strategies they deployed: Active optimistic group (n= 107), Defensive functional group (n= 159), Avoiders group (n= 89), and Learned helplessness group (n= 140). The degree of stability of a cluster solution was studied when the method for cluster analysis was changed, showing that the four-cluster solution captures the essential relationships between the variables. The membership of the strategy groups was associated in theoretically meaningful ways to the anxiety/depression, withdrawal, and social problems.