Just because you regard someone your admirer does n’t signify that they feel the same way . A new work , published inPLOS One , suggest that people may have more one - sided friendships than they intend they do , according toScience of Us .
In the report , researcher from theMIT Media Labasked 84 undergraduates in a category to score how well they knew other people in the class . They “ inquire each participant to score every other participant on a 0–5 scale , where 0 signify ‘ I do not know this individual ’ , 3 mean ‘ admirer ’ and 5 imply ‘ One of my best friends , ’ " as the paper explain . Then , the participant were asked to foreshadow how other people would score them .
Predictably , mass thought that the the great unwashed who they considered their booster would also rate them as friends . But this was n’t the case . Almost one-half of all the friendships reported in the survey were n’t reciprocal — meaning that only one of the two masses deal the other a acquaintance . This , the researchers note , might be about social climbing : citizenry might be more likely to claim friendship with a individual of higher social standing , while people who are popular are more choosy about who they call a friend .
Recent research has tied friendship to major wellness benefits , includingliving longer , having better mental health , and lowerrisk of dementedness . While some studies have linked these welfare to specificallysatisfyingfriendships , it ’s harder to say whether the great unwashed who have one - sided friendly relationship actually find them unsatisfying , or if they deduce just as much pleasure from interact with masses who only consider them acquaintances as with people who perceive their bond as nigher . This might also add up a bed of complexity to studies about societal influence , which typically necessitate people about their perceived social networks .
[ h / tScience of Us ]
