Who are all these people you're friends with on Facebook? How many are there: 100, 300, 1000, 5000? In 2010, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar wrote the book How Many Friends Do One Person Need? and in it he suggested: on average, a person is able to be friends and maintain friendly relations with 150 people.
Dunbar found this figure by studying the brains of primates and the sizes of their social groups. We primates are very social animals. But relationships are energy-consuming, their number cannot be infinite, it is limited by the size of the brain: the larger it is, the wider the social circle can be. And the size of the human brain is such that it is enough for about 150 friends. Only with them can you have a full-fledged stable connection and mutual trust. The rest of the thousands of names in your friend feed are just acquaintances.
Other research by Robin Dunbar and other friendship researchers has also shown that the dynamics and structure of our friendships follow 10 universal rules. These are the rules.
Law 1. Women and extroverts have many friends
The average number of friendships, according to Dunbar’s calculations, is 150. But even the scientist himself admits: some people can have 100 or 200. And his critics even believe that 150 friends is not for everyone: the size of social groups A person's life is determined not only by the structure of the brain, but also by various cultural and social mechanisms.
Real numbers are much more varied. More or fewer friends depends on social skills, gender and personality. Social skills determine not only the total number of contacts, but also the number of close friends. Women usually have more of both than men. Apparently, thanks to a more developed ability to understand what another person is feeling. Moral: if you want more friends, develop emotional intelligence.
There are two other personality traits that influence the number of friends you have. Firstly, neuroticism is emotional instability and a tendency towards negative emotions. The more neurotic you are, the fewer friends you have. Secondly, extraversion is an orientation toward the outside world. Here it’s the other way around: extroverts have a wider social circle.
But is it good to have many friends? There are two ways to distribute your social capital: in large portions among a few friends or in small portions among many. Introverts prefer the first option: they have fewer friends, but on an emotional level they are closer to those who are allowed into their personal social network.
First, let's define friendship, what does it include?
Friendship is a close relationship based on trust, affection, common interests, mutual respect and mutual assistance.
Thus, the psychology of friendship presupposes sympathy and affection and affects the spiritual side of the human personality. It is considered the most moral feeling - friendship is even a purer moral manifestation than love, since it is not so demanding. At the same time, a person discovers his best qualities in friendship - he learns to be attentive, caring, show support, help, and always comes to the rescue in difficult situations.
As a rule, friendship presupposes a commonality of interests, which initially unites people. Let's take a closer look at what types of friendships there are, how they are formed, what are the differences and similarities.
Law 2: Our intimacy with friends varies.
Even with 150 people from our inner circle, we are close in different ways. According to researchers, our personal social network consists of several layers - according to the degree of proximity.
- First layer.
Five close people on whose shoulders you can cry.
- Second layer.
Another ten to fifteen close friends and family members.
- Third layer.
50 people you can invite to a party.
- Fourth layer.
The remaining 70–80 people, whose level of intimacy with us Robin Dunbar defines as follows: could come to our funeral.
Law 3. Relatives are closer to us than friends
Our social world consists of two different groups of people: friends and family. As a rule, it is relatives who are included in the first and second layers, that is, in the innermost circle. And since the ability to maintain relationships is limited, we immediately reserve front row seats for family members. Friends get only what is left. This is why people from large families tend to have fewer friends.
Why are relatives a priority? The reasons are obvious. In difficult times, they will help you faster than even your closest friends. In addition, friendship often dies if it is not cultivated, and family relationships can withstand even more difficult tests. Family members remain in stable positions in our inner circle throughout our lives, and up to 20% of our connections with friends change every few years.
Personal qualities are paramount
It is important that the people you let into your life have positive qualities. You should only be friends with those who treat you a certain way. And who are you ready to treat like that? Emotional support and advice
The main feature of a true friend is that he stays with you both in sorrow and in joy. He supports you and does everything in his power to help you. If you need advice, a friend will give it, but will not impose his opinion and be offended if you do not agree with him. Friends should both empathize with your grief and distract you from your problems, preventing you from completely wallowing in despondency.
What distinguishes a true friend from a false one is that he always thinks what will be better for the other. Even if he is offended or upset by your decision, if it benefits you, he will not object. And he will find the strength to rejoice at your successes, even if it means that you will not be able to communicate as closely as before.
Give-and-take balance
For communication to be positive and beneficial, both participants must make an equal contribution. One cannot take more from a relationship than he gives - this contradicts all the laws of friendship. Also a person who invests too many resources in friendship: time, emotions, support; but he himself does not want to accept anything in return - sooner or later he will burn out, and he will blame someone else for this. You should not get close to those who are not ready to invest in your relationship, as this will make you constantly feel left out. But be careful with overly generous people. Lack of balance always entails awkwardness and resentment.
Mutual positive influence
Next to good friends who have various strengths and achieve success, we ourselves become better. It is important to inspire loved ones, motivate, help achieve new goals and victories - to be a real team. As we have already noted, true friends sincerely rejoice at each other’s successes. In such relationships there is no place for envy and condescension in the spirit: “Poor guy, it’s okay, someday you will succeed.” Friends will always say that you are great and tell you what you should do to achieve more.
Frankness
With whom else to share feelings and thoughts, if not with loved ones. You can honestly tell them what you think in any situation. You will not argue and prove each other wrong, even if you disagree on something. And if you are wrong, your friend will not condemn your point of view, but will simply say so openly. He will not mock emotions. He will definitely listen, give advice or show support. Sometimes a friend doesn't need to say anything. You can simply talk to him without fear of being misunderstood. Communication with real friends should not cause discomfort or doubt as to whether it is worth being frank.
Confidence
When you tell a secret to your friend, you must be sure that he will not betray you. Also, you always know that you can rely on a friend. He will not give up on you, even if you make a mistake: he will support you, tell you how to correct it. True friends protect each other in any situation and stand up for common values. A friend will not talk about you behind your back, spread gossip, or otherwise show duplicity.
Law 4. Sometimes the most important people are those with whom we hardly communicate.
How much time do we spend maintaining relationships? To answer this question, Robin Dunbar studied data on how people from different cultures, from African Maasai pastoralists to English housewives, allocate time for communication. According to his calculations, out of 18 hours of active wakefulness, a person spends about 3.5 hours on social interactions (eating together and talking). Not so much. If you divide it between 150 contacts, that's just 1 minute 45 seconds per person. But social math is harder because we don't distribute communication evenly. We devote about 40–60% of our time (17.5 minutes each) to the five closest people from the first layer of the social network. Another 20% (4.5 minutes each) per day is spent on 10–15 people from the second layer.
The remaining 137 contacts get only 37 seconds per day. We may see the least intimate of them a couple of times a year, usually at weddings and funerals. At first glance, it may seem that these people play almost no role in our lives. In fact, weak social ties should not be underestimated, says Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Through such superficial connections, we often find good jobs or other important economic or social opportunities that our inner circle does not have access to. Such “long-distance” contacts are no less important for love: almost 70% meet their future partner precisely thanks to them.
It is necessary to be able to limit communication with inappropriate people.
If a person does not meet the above criteria or in any way brings you negative emotions and creates problems, do not hesitate to stop communicating with him.
This person is not your friend, so you have nothing to lose. But you will save your time, nerves and dignity. No criticism and humiliation
Sometimes, under the guise of innocent jokes or moralizing, people allow themselves to criticize, ridicule and in every possible way belittle the personality of another person. They are not ashamed of this both in private and can put a friend in an unfavorable light in front of strangers. If this has become the norm in your communication, there is no longer talk of any real friendship. Hurting words or actions, especially after you asked the person not to do so, indicate that he does not take your opinion into account. He either asserts himself at your expense. Or he considers you his competitor and tries to get around you by any means. Take care of your self-esteem, do not allow anyone, even those closest to you, to humiliate you.
Don't let yourself be used
If a person is jealous or trying to assert himself at your expense, he will not necessarily immediately begin to openly attack and belittle your successes. This can also manifest itself in deliberate indifference to your affairs. And unwillingness to help. For example, you constantly ask a friend to help with a task, which will give you the opportunity to get closer to an important goal. But he never finds time, refuses under the most ridiculous pretexts. But when he needs a favor, he will find a way to persuade you to help, even if it ruins all your plans.
Remember, true friends are made through joy. When everything is going well for you, and your friend yawns demonstratively and says: “Come on, what’s wrong with that,” instead of being sincerely happy, he is jealous. An envious person will sooner or later start to put a spoke in your wheels. And if he is already doing this, even more so, run away from such a “friend.” The same goes for relationships where the balance is upset. If you notice that you are giving everything to a friend, but are not receiving any gratitude in return, stop communicating.
Avoid pessimism
It often happens that your friend is a generally good person. And he won’t betray you, and he will listen, and he has time for you. But after each meeting you feel some kind of unpleasant aftertaste. The reason may be that your friend is an inveterate pessimist and infects you with a negative view of the world. Such people see only the dark side of everything. They never believe in a good outcome, do not trust others, and expect a trick. And they even rejoice when everything turns out badly. It seems that their problems and troubles simply do not end. No matter how much you support them and convince them that everything will be fine, they will not believe it. And even if you solve all their problems, they will easily find new ones.
If you try to convince a pessimist, you are unlikely to succeed. But you will spend a lot of effort and energy. Or you may unwittingly succumb to this negativity. So be careful. If you sincerely like a person, you don’t have to stop communicating completely. However, limit it in time and avoid discussing important things in which you need a positive attitude. Also, stop solving all the problems of your pessimistic friend. Know how to distinguish between a truly urgent situation, where they can’t do without you, from moments in which they simply shift responsibility for their own disappointments onto you.
Law 5. Distance kills friendship
Our ancestors lived in small settlements and saw all 150 members of their social network at all times. Today the distance between us is much greater. And this does not have the best effect on friendship. There's the 30-minute rule: If you can't get to a friend's house in half an hour, you'll be less likely to call or text them. One study even found that the frequency of phone conversations between friends decreases as the distance between them increases. After about 160 km the connection abruptly stops. We can say that there is an inverse relationship between distance and level of intimacy.
Law 8. No friends are irreplaceable
Our social circle is changing. We part with old friends and make new ones. Some people become closer, others move away. A study by Robin Dunbar and his colleague Sam Robertson from the University of Chester showed that this process also follows a strict pattern.
Over the course of 18 months, they tracked the telephone activity of a group of students and asked them about personal meetings with friends. Each student showed a consistent pattern of communication. Although over the course of a year and a half of observations, their relationships with friends changed a lot (they broke up with some people, met others, began to communicate with someone more often or, conversely, less often), the general pattern remained unchanged. Having lost one friend, a person simply replaced the vacant place in this social circle with another - and communicated with him with the same frequency.
Psychology of friendship and its types
The psychology of friendship pays great attention to the question of the reasons for the formation of friendship and the choice of friends. Initially, friendships arise in the process of common labor - hunting, farming, knightly wars. Obviously, a team is stronger than one person, uniting into tribes, teams, helps to overcome an opponent, a beast, and life’s adversities. In the modern world, a person is free to choose friends on his own, often using psychological compatibility and internal needs.
Friendship from the point of view of psychology identifies the following role forms of manifestation of friendship based on psychological needs
- “Comrade” - unites common interests, joint employment, common projects, activities.
- “Mirror” helps you get to know yourself, tells you what you look like, and helps you understand your own personality on a psychological level.
- The “compassionate” is an excellent helper in difficult situations, provides moral support, serves as a psychotherapist, and heals emotional wounds.
- “Interlocutor” is interesting for communication, there is a lot in common to discuss, a high level of mutual understanding, an opportunity to open up and be heard.
- “Alter ego” is an internal feeling of similarity on a psychological level, the desire to be like a friend.
- “Ideal” is a person who acts as a role model; we strive to adopt certain qualities, learn a new attitude towards life or gain new knowledge.
- “Recharging” helps restore energy and mood, inspires you to new achievements, has a positive character, will always cheer you up and give you a great mood.
An ideal friend helps solve several psychological issues, then his value increases, because we feel the need to be together under different circumstances - in happiness and sorrow, as in family life.
The psychology of friendship determines the type of friendship based on the dating situation and the characteristics of the people entering into friendly relations.
The following situational types of friendship are distinguished:
- Friendship from school years (occurs during school years, student years, sometimes continues in the future if there is a desire and interests that unite people);
- Office friendship (formed as a result of constant contacts during working hours, the need to communicate with colleagues, usually temporary, although it can become strong and continue even after stopping work in the same team);
- Business friendship (occurs between business partners, common aspirations for goals - creating projects, constant meetings, discussing prospects, mutual support and assistance, helping to unite and become friends);
- Resort friendship (acquaintances during vacations, trips, business trips lead to the emergence of new friends; such relationships are usually temporary, although they can continue after separation and return to normal life).
People can meet for different reasons, but the main thing that unites them is a commonality of values, interests, and worldviews. You get the feeling of being a kindred spirit when it’s easy to communicate with a person, understands you well and inspires trust. Not everyone is capable of being true friends; some remain acquaintances. Therefore, true friends are of great value.
Law 9. In friendship, we are also “larks” or “night owls”
Some are more active during the day, others at night. Dunbar and Robertson observed the same pattern in student communication. Moreover, the dependence of our social activity on the time of day is quite stable. People who were classified as early risers or night owls at the start of the study did not change their preferences 18 months later, although the composition of their social environment changed.
Why is it important? Chronotype influences how many friends you have and who they are. This was discovered by Danish researchers who tracked the social activity of 1,000 students. About 20% of the subjects were “early people” in communication. The same number are “owls”. The rest communicated equally actively in the evening and in the morning. It turned out that night owls prefer to communicate with people of their own chronotype and have more contacts than early risers, but they spend less time on each contact.
Law 10. Women’s friendship is strengthened by communication, men’s friendship is strengthened by common cause
One of the questions that Dunbar and Robertson tried to answer in their study: what is the secret to strong friendships? The answer depends on whether you are a woman or a man. To maintain female friendship, personal meetings and telephone communication are equally important. For men, frequent conversations have no effect on the likelihood of maintaining a friendship. Men tend to be friends when they do things together, like going to the same bar or playing sports. For female friendship, joint activities are also important, but conversations are more important.
Basic rules of friendship
Every person dreams of wonderful and loyal friends who are always there, ready to help and understand. However, let's put the question differently, in order to find a friend, just like a loved one, you need to be worthy of friendship, be able to make friends, show the best moral qualities, what requirements does friendship put forward, what lies at the basis of relationships?
The psychology of friendship defines the basic rules of friendship:
- Exchange - friends strive to share information, successes, achievements, news. They are always ready to provide moral support and come to the rescue in difficult situations. They strive to be pleasant to communicate with, ready for mutual favors, sincere and open in communication.
- Intimacy - this feature includes the presence of trust in friends, confidence in their reliability. There is a feeling of devotion, responsibility towards friends, and a desire to keep secrets.
- Attitude towards third parties - the desire to protect a friend in front of other people, the ability to recognize and respect his other friends, calmly treat personal relationships, avoid criticism in public.
- Coordination - it is important to understand that each person has his own personal space, there is no need to be intrusive, a desire for constant communication, he has his own life, interests, concerns. Constant teachings also do not bring joy to friends; respect for a person and his inner world should be a priority.
The secrets of friendship and strong relationships for many years depend on compliance with the code of friendship, unwritten rules. Initially, coordination and relationships with third parties play a big role, as an indicator of a friendly relationship. Over time, relationships become deeper, involve more trust, intimacy - reliability, devotion play a key role, in contrast to the standard exchange that is often found in public life.
How to maintain friendship? 6 rules
Oxford psychologists Michael Argyle and Monica Henderson conducted four studies to derive universal rules for friendship. So, to maintain friendship, you need to:
- Protect your friends and be on their side, even if they are not around.
- Share important news with friends.
- Provide friends with emotional support.
- Trust friends and share secrets with them.
- Respond to friends' requests for help.
- Try to please your friends.
Will the friendship be close? 7 signs
Friends are usually like us. Robin Dunbar and his colleague Oliver Curry from Oxford identified the most important similarities that indicate that a friendship will last.
- You speak the same language. Even better - in the same dialect.
- You grew up in the same area.
- You have the same educational and career experiences.
- Your interests and hobbies are similar.
- You see eye to eye on morality, religion and politics.
- You have a similar sense of humor.
- You love the same music.
