At one point in my life I read an article that talked about how our friends ultimately alter our own personalities, it went on to say that we each have the personality of our four closest friend’s personalities combined. I found this article rather interesting. Instead of researching this topic, however, I wanted to research how or why we choose the friends that we do. Ever since I can remember my friends have always been very similar to me, I tend to choose friends who have close to the same personality as I do. Is it just ironic that I choose to be friends with people who are like me, or does it have to do with something deeper?
One study I came across was conducted in Massachusetts. Scientists here studied 1,932 people. They were looking at each person’s genes. There results were very interesting in my opinion. They discovered that friends shared about 1% of their genes, this percentage is significantly larger than the percentage of genes shared between two strangers. Scientists are not really sure why the results turned out like this, however it could be due to a possible “kin detection system” in people. Olfactory genes seemed to line up the most, while immune system genes lined up the least. Scientists said that it made sense for the olfactory genes to line up because friends tend to enjoy similar smells.
This study was probably due to chance, in my opinion. Unless this “kin detection system” actually exists I doubt that we choose friends who have similar genes as us. 1,932 people were used, which isn’t necessarily small, but is not huge either. It would be really interesting to see this study conducted again, but with more people.
Another study I came across was done by Professor Peter DeScioli. He researched the online friendships through social media of 11 million people. MySpace, a social media website, has a section where people rank their “best friend”. His research found that people were more likely to rank somebody as their “best friend” if they knew that person would rank them back as their “best friend” as well. His findings support the “alliance hypothesis for friendship.” This hypothesis says that we depend on our friends during conflicts. We want to be friends with people we are positive will back us up in an argument. We want to strongly feel that the person we are calling our “best friend” will always side with us.
I also found this study to be very interesting. We base friendships off of security. We want to feel safe, we do so by forming friendships with people we know will support us in times of need. I feel that this study is correct, it used 11 million people, so it is highly unlikely that the results are solely due to chance. I can connect with this study because as self-fish as it sounds, I definitely pick friends I can depend on when I need them. I probably wouldn’t develop a strong friendship with somebody I couldn’t trust to back me up in argument when I needed them to.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/people-choose-friends-dna-similar-study-article-1.1867373
http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2011/march/friendship.html