This study purported to examine relationships between parental peer management and adolescents' social skills,
friendship quality, loneliness, and delinquency and further shed light on gender differences in these relationships.
Four-hundred-seventy adolescents living in Seoul, Gyunggi, and Incheon areas (240 males and 230 females) completed
pencil-and-paper assessments of parental management of adolescent peer relationships, adolescent social skills, adolescent
friendship quality, adolescent loneliness, and adolescent delinquency. Given the lack of research validating the Parental
Management of Peer relationship Inventory (PMPI; Mounts, 2001) using a Korean adolescent population and the
possibility of cross-cultural differences in the structure of the parental peer management behaviors, exploratory factor
analyses were conducted for the original PMPI items and developed the four scales (Consulting on Peer Relationships,
Insisting/Prohibiting Certain Friendships, Emphasizing Healthy Friendships, and Autonomy Granting in Peer
Relationships). Correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses suggest that parental consulting, autonomy
granting, and emphasizing healthy friendships are positive parental peer management dimensions, with positive effects
on adolescent social outcomes and negative or no effects on adolescent loneliness and delinquency. On the other hand,
parental insisting/prohibiting was found to contribute to adolescents' feeling lonely and engaging in delinquent behaviors
and have no effects on other adolescent outcomes. Gender differences were found in some relationships involving
parental consulting and autonomy granting. Clinical implications of these findings were discussed.