Gender role attitudes have important implications at the individual, family, and societal levels, underscoring the importance of understanding their development. Although parents predominate in the socialization of gender role attitudes in childhood, the influence of friends increases during adolescence. In particular, cross-gender friends can provide unique insights and perspectives on another gender group, making them likely to shape gender role attitudes. However, empirical explorations of the link between gender role attitudes and cross-gender friendships have been rare. Furthermore, the few studies conducted have yielded ambiguous results and have struggled to separate the influence of cross-gender friends from a selection of such friendships based on gender role attitudes. This study addresses these limitations by using longitudinal social network models to assess the co-evolution of friendship networks and gender role attitudes among 3,194 youth (M_age = 15.2, SD = 0.67, 51% female) in German schools. The findings reveal that, after accounting for selection processes, boys with cross-gender friends develop more egalitarian gender role attitudes, while girls’ attitudes are unaffected by cross-gender friendships. These findings suggest that promoting cross-gender friendships among adolescent boys holds the potential to foster egalitarian gender role attitudes.

性别角色态度对个人、家庭和社会层面具有重要影响，强调了理解其发展的重要性。尽管父母在童年时期性别角色态度的社会化中占主导地位，但朋友的影响力在青春期会增加。特别是，跨性别朋友可以提供对另一个性别群体的独特见解和观点，使他们有可能塑造性别角色态度。然而，对性别角色态度与跨性别友谊之间联系的实证探索却很少。此外，为数不多的研究得出了模棱两可的结果，并且很难将跨性别朋友的影响与基于性别角色态度的友谊选择分开。本研究通过使用纵向社交网络模型来评估德国学校 3,194 名青少年（ M_年龄= 15.2， SD = 0.67，51% 女性）的友谊网络和性别角色态度的共同进化，从而解决了这些局限性。研究结果表明，考虑到选择过程后，有跨性别朋友的男孩会形成更加平等的性别角色态度，而女孩的态度则不受跨性别友谊的影响。这些发现表明，促进青春期男孩之间的跨性别友谊有可能培养平等的性别角色态度。