We tend to think that the more friends we have, the better. Then we’ll be happier and even more attractive to new potential friends. In the ME MAP books (Click here to learn about the books!) we point out that research found that our happiness is not determined by the number of friends we have, but rather by the quality of the relationships we have with those close to us.
A recent study conducted at the University of Hong Kong has revealed that many people expect that having a lot of friends will make it more likely that others will want to connect with us, and it makes us more attractive as potential friends. As having many friends has proven the fact that we are good ‘friend material’ – otherwise we would have less friends.
Nevertheless, the experiment has shown that most of us want to befriend people who have less friends.
For example, the participants in the experiment had to choose which social media members who had similar profiles to themselves they would like to be friends with. In most cases, people preferred those with fewer friends (50 friends rather than 200, for example).
The participants of the study were also more inclined to talk to people with “relatively few” friends than those with “relatively many” friends when they were “speed dating”. The explanation for this: if someone has fewer friends, we are more confident that they will have time, energy and attention for us.
As Aristotle said more than 2000 years ago (quote about friendships on page 146 of ME MAP Young Adults):
Well, we do know in our hearts that the quality of friendships matters more than the number, and that good relationships require an investment of time and energy.
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology April 2020
