Half Of Our Friendships May Not Be Reciprocated, According To A Study
Friendship is one of the most important elements in most people’s lives, but, at the same time, it is something very difficult to quantify.
This is so, among other things, because, as happens in relationships, friendship is not something that one can possess, but a relationship dynamic that involves more than one person And this is what means that it is often not very clear whether the degree of intensity that we attribute to that relationship is close to the way in which the other person perceives this emotional bond.
But, since human beings are animals and intelligent, we are surely very good at assessing whether our friends consider us friends… right?
Well, a recent study published in PLOS ONE suggests that About half of our friendships could be unrequited That is to say, in one case out of two, the person we believe to be our friend does not see us as a relevant friendship, which could cause them to be considered false friends or, simply, people whose courtesy is taken for a true attachment.
How was the research carried out?
A group of 84 people with ages ranging from 23 to 38 years old was used as a sample group to carry out this research. The purpose of the study was to see to what extent the relational dynamics of a community of people affect when it comes to persuading its members, creating currents of opinion, etc. However, one of the things that caught the most attention was related to another topic.
In order to have data to work with, the researchers asked them to rate from 5 to the degree to which they considered other people friends, with 1 being the option “is a stranger” and 5 being “best friend/ to”. Besides, Each individual had to rate, also on a 5-point scale, the degree to which they believed the other person considered them a friend
The results
In general, The vast majority of participants were optimistic when it came to assessing how reciprocated they were in their friendly relationships In 94% of cases, people used the same number to quantify the degree of friendship they felt and the degree to which they believed the other person reciprocated them. That is, there was a clear tendency to believe that the relationships were symmetrical and bidirectional.
Judging by the data obtained, this optimism was rather based on wishful thinking. In 47% of the cases, the scores obtained were not the same
Fake friends? What are his dark motivations?
There are many ways to interpret these results One of them is to simply believe that the conclusions reached through this research do not correspond to reality. Ultimately, this is just one study, and errors may have occurred in sampling, design, or data analysis. Furthermore, it is still true that this could occur only in certain cultures or populations, and not in all the inhabitants of the planet. To know this, more research would be needed.
Another way to take it is to believe that the results of this study are a reflection of what really happens in our relationships. It could be that humans are exceptionally bad at distinguishing between true friends (which correspond to us) and others who only act in a way similar to how a friend would.
But there is also another possible explanation: that these conclusions show the consequences of having many non-antagonistic personal relationships. That is to say, in a time when it is common to have 400 contacts on Facebook, many of whom congratulate us on our birthday without hardly knowing us, it is increasingly difficult to know who is kind in a totally spontaneous way and who only acts like this out of courtesy. .
After all, in a culture in which image matters more and more, posture and appearances can also come to envelop what was once our network of relationships based on honesty and affection.
