I'm Outgoing and She's Reserved: The Reciprocal Dynamics of Personality in Close Friendships in Young Adulthood

Abstract

Close college-age friendships provide differential opportunities for reinforcing dispositional tendencies and fostering accommodation or change. This finding was obtained from a crosssectional study of 66 pairs of same-sex college-age friends (58% female). Each pair of friends was extreme and either very similar or different with regard to extraversion-introversion. Interviews with each friend were analyzed for references to each other's role in various friendship domains, including the setting of the friendship and position with regard to chatting, disclosing, expressing opinions about peers, and energizing the friendship. Matched friends mutually reinforced each other's similar dispositional tendencies. Friends with contrasting personalities showed patterns of personality accommodation as well as complementary reinforcement. Implications are discussed for embedding reciprocal theories of personality development in close friendships. KeywordsExtraversion-introversion; reciprocal-interaction; friendship practices; mutual reinforcement; complementarity One person's experience of another person has a special quality, quite different from his perception of a piece of cheese…. It is marked by a recognition of mutuality…accompanied by an appreciation of the feelings of the other person and some willingness to adjust to them…. It is difficult to interpret any interpersonal proceeding without knowledge of the history of both personalities and a knowledge of their current thoughts and feelings. (Murray, 1951, pp. 438-440) Observational studies have long recognized that particular personalities produce a distinctive social press or force (Block, 1971;Funder, 1999;Murray, 1938). To date, the social force of personality has usually been observed unilaterally, with less attention to how the personality of the observer interacts with that of the observed. In addition, studies of the bilateral force of personalities have usually focused on strangers rather than people who have a long history of interacting with each other (Sadler & Woody, 2003;Thorne, 1987;Tracey, 2004). While observations of strangers can reveal the instantaneous press of personality, interviews with friends can reveal how they come to live with and potentially adjust to each other's dispositional similarities and differences. Accordingly, this unprecedented study explored how close friends who were extreme and either very similar or very different with regard to extraversion-introversion reportedly engaged in an array of friendship practices. InteractionsThe dynamic interaction of personality and environments has increasingly gained broad theoretical attention (e.g., Caspi & Roberts, 2001;Fleeson, 2004;Mischel & Shoda, 1998). A commonality among dynamic approaches is adherence to the generally accepted view that personality has both bio-genetic and psychosocial foundations. New, however, is an emphasis on examining trait processes (e.g., how a person manages to enthusiastically chat with strangers) in addition to outcomes (e.g., I like to talk w...

Personality homophily affects male social bonding in wild Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis)

“…Friends with similar personalities may perceive, interpret, and react to the world around them in a similar way (neuronal homophily; Parkinson, Kleinbaum, & Wheatley, 2018). Friends share dispositions and agree on values, opinions and activities, which may trigger a positive affective response that increases enjoyment of each other’s company, and strengthens the self-concept (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Campbell, Sedikides, Reeder, & Elliot, 2000; Clore & Byrne, 1974; Hampson, 2011; Nelson, Thorne, & Shapiro, 2011; Nelson et al, 2011; Selfhout et al, 2010). Personality similarity among friends may further reduce uncertainty during acquaintanceship and enhances predictability by increasing the ease and clarity of communication (Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Neyer, Banse, & Asendorpf, 1999; Selfhout et al, 2010; van Zalk & Denissen, 2015).…”

Social network dynamics in the course of family formation: Results from a mixed-methods longitudinal study

“…Studies on friendship have long shown that friends are similar with respect to attitudes and behavior (see Lazarsfeld and Merton 1954;McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook 2001). Additionally, qualitative studies of friendships have reported that having a "special wavelength" and "shared interests" are especially important for friendships during young adulthood (Nelson, Thorne, and Shapiro 2011). Those two foundations for a friendship proved to be very vulnerable to transitions to parenthood, particularly if this transition was experienced by only one of the friends.…”

It’s the way he tells them (and who is listening): men’s dominance is positively correlated with their preference for jokes told by dominant-sounding men

“…Furthermore, our findings demonstrate a pattern of strategic humor appreciation in men towards other men of a similar perceived status. As the exchange of humor is likely to be a low-cost strategy for monitoring interest within dyads or groups (Li et al, 2009), humor use may be particularly evident among individuals of similar phenotypes, given theoretical and empirical evidence for the importance of similarity in the maintenance of cooperative partnerships (e.g., Apicella et al, 2012;Massen and Koski, 2014;Nelson et al, 2011;Riolo et al, 2001). Moreover, group cohesion is thought to have been particularly important for male fitness over evolutionary history (see Benenson et al, 2013 (Flamson and Barret, 2008;Gervais and Wilson, 2005), and while shared appreciation of culture can promote affiliation, its effects on altruistic behaviour appear to be specific to the shared appreciation of humorous content (Curry and Dunbar, 2013).…”

“…For example, similarity in social boldness is a correlate of friendships among non-kin in chimpanzees (Massen and Koski, 2014). In humans, indices of upper body strength such as grip strength predict social connections among the Hadza tribe (Apicella et al, 2012), while Western adolescents appear to form social partnerships according to their level of extraversion (Nelson et al, 2011).Individuals with similar phenotypes may, therefore, be particularly likely to use humorous exchange as a means toward monitoring interest within dyads or groups of similar individuals. This strategy may be particularly beneficial within such groups.…”

“…Given that humor appreciation and production are valuable for signalling interest in the initiation and maintenance of social partnerships (Curry and Dunbar, 2013;Li et al, 2009), and that similarity among social partners predicts partnership formation (e.g., Apicella et al, 2012;Massen and Koski, 2014;Nelson et al, 2011),…”