Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences...

Abstract

Friends bolster health and happiness, with friend preferences directing us toward friends who can facilitate this. Intuition and research alike suggest people prefer friends to be kind and trustworthy and disfavor viciousness and indifference (and befriend the similar, familiar, nearby). Taking a target-specific approach, we predict and find people possess preferences not only for how friends should behave toward us, but—because our friends interact with others, and these interactions can affect us—people also possess nuanced, distinct preferences for how friends should behave toward others: (a) When targets of friends’ behavior are unspecified (reflecting previous work), preferences track how people want friends to behave toward us. In line with that work, (b) people want friends to be kinder and more trustworthy than not. But (c) people also want friends to be more prosocial toward us than toward others and (d) sometimes want friends to be more vicious than prosocial—toward our rivals.

Why Warmth Matters More Than Competence: A New Evolutionary Approach

“…However, most of the research we reviewed used other terms (e.g., warmth, morality), so we conceptually translate this to WTR. There is evidence that when people consider another person’s dispositional traits (e.g., kindness, trustworthiness) without the target of those dispositions specified, what people actually consider is how the person will treat them in particular (i.e., the person’s WTR toward them; Krems et al, 2021; Lukaszewski & Roney, 2010), so this translation seems to be consistent with actual social psychology. Note as well that when we refer to WTR, we are referring to the conceptual variable, not to a score on any particular measure in the literature.…”

“…There is evidence that social cognition reflects the target-specificity of WTR. When choosing friends and mates, people do not want a partner who is kind in general, but a partner who is kind toward themselves in particular and even potentially unkind toward their rivals (Krems et al, 2021; Lukaszewski & Roney, 2010). Likewise, Hadza hunter-gatherers disagree with each other on who is moral (e.g., generous and honest) despite evidence of some agreement on which traits constitute moral character (e.g., generosity and hard work; K.…”

Ideal-perception consistency and regulation of best friends: Associations With attachment anxiety and avoidance

“…Perhaps, then, these dimensions are not all relevant for judging friendships. Yet, people prefer friends who can help them solve adaptative challenges and increase their chances of accessing resources (e.g., wealth, status, mates; Cottrell et al, 2007; Krems et al, 2021). As exchanges of help may happen at different times, it is important for people to be able to trust their friends to help them if and when they need them (Cottrell et al, 2007).…”