Research released by Evolutionary Psychological Science in June 2022 examined friendship preferences in a range of individuals. Through it, researchers were able to identify which are the most unwanted and most loved personality traits in friends. Were you curious to know what they are? See below.
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You may already know this, but friendship is something that is present in all cultures, times and places. Because of this, it becomes something universal and essential among human beings. However, this does not mean that it is interesting to have relationships with anyone, quite the contrary... In reality, we can be quite selective when choosing our partners. Check out which aspects!
Why do we make friends?
To begin with, there are several studies and explanations of why we seek friends, but they generally converge to the idea of support and social contribution. In general, it's an evolutionary trait, where through closer and more friendly relationships, we could rely on each other to survive.
After all, although the family fulfills this role, it still has limitations. We don't feel as comfortable with all of our family members, and we don't always find the traits we like in other people in them. So scientists have tried to figure out what we want (or don't want) in other individuals when we want greater connection.
The search
Basically, 3 studies were done. In the first, which had 236 volunteers from Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, participants indicated which characteristics they would like their friends to have and not have. From this list, 50 desirable and another 43 undesirable emerged.
In the second study, 706 participants needed to rank between 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree) the 50 desired traits identified in the first study. Then, the third study, which had 861 people, performed the same process as the second, but with the 43 undesirable characteristics.
In the end, the researchers realized that the desirable traits with the highest yield were honest, ethical, pleasant, available, discreet, tolerant, fun and intelligent. In terms of undesirable effects, the highlights were dishonesty, competitiveness and impatience.
