What research teaches us about friendship

All students are looking for friends when they move to a new place. It is not always easy to find the right people for this, but social interactions fulfil a vital function for people. Therefore, we develop an affiliation need, the endeavour to seek the proximity of other people, regardless of the relationship to them (1). Satisfying this need can, for example, lead to problems in the absence of friendships and is cited as a possible reason for unnecessarily frequent doctor's visits by pensioners (2).

It is therefore unsurprising that having friends is a relevant factor in predicting self-rated happiness and life satisfaction (3). This result has been demonstrated across cultures. In particular, the quality of best friendships is a reliable predictor of life satisfaction (3). When people are supported in their autonomy by their friends (4) and feel that they matter to their friends (5), friendships show a positive relationship with life satisfaction.

Since the quality of friendship has this influence, the question arises as to which factors enable qualitative friendships. An interesting paper points to the relationship between time spent together and closeness of friendship. Approximately 43 hours over three weeks were necessary to transition from the status of an acquaintance to that of a loose friendship; from loose friends to friends, a total of 80 to 100 hours over six weeks was needed; and from friends to best friends, 219 hours over three months were spent together. If we assume that a meeting on an afternoon ends after approximately 3 hours, they would need approximately 30 afternoons spent together over 6 weeks to achieve the status of friendship. Interestingly, time spent talking to each other was not directly correlated with how close they were. This can possibly be explained by the fact that relationships with people in work or school settings were also captured. It was further shown that more small talk indicates a looser friendship. Both intimate conversations and conversations about everyday events, as well as joking and having fun together, were relevant for close relationships (6). From this, it cannot be concluded that if someone has spent 219 hours over 3 months with another person, they will become best friends. In this study, participants were asked retrospectively how much time they had spent with a person of their choosing whom they met after moving no more than 6 months ago. However, the amount of time spent together cannot be determined precisely in retrospect. They were further asked how they would classify their relationship with this person. Therefore, the differences could also be attributed to a different understanding of what distinguishes friends, good friends and best friends.

Overall, it can be derived from this article that it is necessary to invest time to make new friendships. This concerns not only time at work or at university, which we spend anyway with people who could become our friends, but also our leisure time. On the other hand, previous studies have shown that very close friendships develop quickly. In figures, it seems to take between 3 and 9 weeks after meeting for us to call people our best friends (7).

It has been shown that friendships also have positive long-term effects. For example, the number of friends and the quality of friendships at the age of 20 could help predict loneliness and depression 30 years later (8). In fact, despite these positive effects of friendships, we do not spend the largest proportion of our leisure time with friends. In an American study, people reported spending 41 minutes a day on social activities. They spent three times that amount of time in front of the television (9). Therefore, my personal recommendation would be to spend more time with friends and less time in front of the television, and possibly this behaviour will have positive effects on life satisfaction not only in the short term but also in the long term.

Florentine Klepel 

(1) Stangl, W. (n.d.). Online Lexikon für Psychologie und Pädagogik. Retrieved from https://lexikon.stangl.eu/2033/affiliationsbeduerfnis/.

(2) Zeitung, S. (2016, September 9). Häufige Arztbesuche im Alter: Dahinter steckt oft Einsamkeit. Retrieved from https://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/familie-haeufige-arztbesuche-im-alter-dahinter-steckt-oft-einsamkeit-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-160908-99-381262.

(3) Demir, M., Orthel-Clark, H., Ozedemir, M., & Ozedemir, S. B. (2015). Friendship and happiness among young adults. In M. Demir (Ed.), Friendship and happiness (pp. 117–135). New York City, NY: Springer

(4) Ratelle, C. F., Simard, K., & Guay, F. (2013). University students' subjective well-being: The role of autonomy support from parents, friends, and the romantic partner. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(3), 893-910.

(5) Demir, M., & Davidson, I. (2013). Toward a better understanding of the relationship between friendship and happiness: Perceived responses to capitalization attempts, feelings of mattering, and satisfaction of basic psychological needs in same-sex best friendships as predictors of happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(2), 525-550.

(6) Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend?. Journal of social and personal relationships, 36(4), 1278-1296.

(7) van Duijn, M. A. J., Zeggelink, E. P. H., Huisman, M., Stokman, F. N., & Wasseur, F. W. (2003). Evolution of sociology freshmen into a friendship network. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 27, 153–191. doi:10.1080/00222500390213137

(8) Carmichael, C. L., Reis, H. T., & Duberstein, P. R. (2015). In your 20s it's quantity, in your 30s it's quality: The prognostic value of social activity across 30 years of adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 30, 95–105. doi:10.1037/pag0000014

(9) US Dept. of Labor. (2015). American time use survey. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/tus/ van Duijn, M. A. J., Zeggelink, E. P. H., Huisman, M., Stokman, F. N., & Wasseur, F. W. (2003). Evolution of sociology freshmen into a friendship network. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 27, 153–191. doi:10.1080/00222500390213137