The Best of Friends

The Best of Friends

By Dr. Megan Jorgensen

Lucky I’m in love with my best friend – Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat

As apparent from songs’ lyrics, movie features and anecdotal stories, every day life may be enhanced, while hardships lightened, by friendship. Indeed, belongings considered a formal human need, while peer pressure is responsible for many an unpleasant decision, especially in more vulnerable persons. Along these lines, the social scientists looking most closely at such interpersonal interactions are social and personality psychologists.

Indeed, social psychology theory states that people tend to form bonds with those closest to them (proximity), alike themselves in intelligence, interests,background and values (similarity), as well as, emotional ties and intimacy (liking). Together, these three principles may very well be responsible for tales of life long relationships involving companionship, trust, self-disclosure,humor and a lot of fun.

Futuristic, science fictional, apocalyptic scenery. Image: © Elena

Close friends, similar to old, happily married couples, are rumored to understand each other without words. Does the association stand only for a romantic dyad or lovers? In effect, while cross-cultural studies have shown that persons across the world recognize facial displays of basic emotions, closer friends may be better apt to read these, than casual acquaintances, according to a paper by Zhang & Parmley (2011). In fact, familiarity with idiosyncrasies of expression may help emotional decoding. Notwithstanding, the link appears stronger in relation to subdued rather than high intensity affect.

Alternatively, DeScioli et al. (2011) describe how reciprocity plays an important role informing and maintaining social ties. The authors mention the alliance hypothesis,stating that allies represent a buffer against potential disputes. However, the partner to be must prefer one to an opponent in a conflict situation. In support of the postulate,individuals’ rankings of other users in their public Internet profiles corresponded to how these alter egos ranked them in turn.

Black and white preliminary drawing (sketch) of a mountainous landscape. Image: © Elena

In conclusion, friendship patterns differ between individuals. To illustrate, psychological research documents that these are evident as early as the first school years,when some youngsters, deemed most popular, form several superficial acquaintances hips, while others vary from rejected, aggressive and lonely, to content with few but closer, deeper and more meaningful friendships. Clearly,in the digital era, social interaction has been greatly impacted by the advent of online networking Websites.

References:

• DeScioli,P., Kurzban, R., Koch, E. N. & Liben-Nowell, D. (2011). Best friends:Alliances, friends ranking and the MySpace social network. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6 (1): 6-8.
• Zhang,F. & Parmley, M. (2011). What your best friend sees that I don’t see:Comparing female close friends and casual acquaintances on the perception of emotional facial expressions of varying intensities. Personality and Social PsychologyBulletin, 37 (1): 28-39.

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