New research suggests that friendship could help children from a low-income background become more resilient.

Young people from low-income areas typically face substantial challenges to good physical health, mental health, academic achievement and employment. However, researchers found that a single supportive close friendship helps them thrive in challenging circumstances.

Previous studies have linked these challenges to involvement with peers and membership of larger friendship groups -- particularly among boys -- but has not looked at whether young people's best friendships could positively contribute to resilience: self-reliance, a balanced perspective on life, and the ability to make meaning from difficult circumstances.

"Research into promoting resilience in young people has concentrated on support from the family, but friendships are important too. Boys' and girls' best friendships are an important source of meaning and strength in the face of substantial adversity," Dr. Rebecca Graber, who led the study, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers surveyed more than 400 students between the ages of 11 and 19 from three schools and two colleges in Yorkshire serving catchment areas with poor socioeconomic status.

The participating students completed psychological assessments of the quality of their closest friendship, their resilience in the face of adverse experiences, and how they typically coped with problems.

They found that the student's best friendships facilitated effective ways of coping (such as planning, reframing an issue in a positive way and using emotional support) that helped them develop resilience to complex challenges.

A significant gender difference also emerged: counterintuitively, girls' best friendships had a slight tendency to promote risky and ineffective ways of coping with adversity (such as self-blame and substance use), but boys' best friendships did not.

"There has also been almost a distrust of friendship between boys, with research concentrating on the negative side of belonging to a gang. But that isn't the whole story," Graber said. "Our research suggests that boys' best friendships may be intimate, trustworthy and supportive, even as they face social pressures towards a stoic or macho masculinity."

The findings are detailed in the British Journal of Psychology.