{"id":68,"date":"2020-10-17T00:04:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T00:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/?p=68"},"modified":"2020-10-17T00:04:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T00:04:42","slug":"f-%e2%80%a2-r-%e2%80%a2-i-%e2%80%a2-e-%e2%80%a2-n-%e2%80%a2-d-%e2%80%a2-s-acquaintances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/2020\/10\/17\/f-%e2%80%a2-r-%e2%80%a2-i-%e2%80%a2-e-%e2%80%a2-n-%e2%80%a2-d-%e2%80%a2-s-acquaintances\/","title":{"rendered":"F \u2022 R \u2022 I \u2022 E \u2022 N \u2022 D \u2022 S (& acquaintances)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friends (Grace)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already learned that one of our most basic needs as humans is to feel like <\/span>we belong<\/span><\/a> – in a place, with people, or just in life (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004). Feeling like we belong creates a sense of comfort and safety; it gives our lives meaning and reaffirms, in many cases, our self-worth. Familial relationships can definitely help satisfy this need to belong \u2013 I mean, who doesn\u2019t feel at home when surrounded by your family as you\u2019re about to devour your Thanksgiving feast? But, friendships can actually give you a greater sense of belonging than familial relationships (Chopik, 2017). Friend relationships have actually been found to predict greater health and happiness in later adulthood than any other interpersonal relationship (Chopik, 2017). When examining the effect of close relationships on health and happiness later in life, Chopik (2017) found that friendships, in particular, foster better health, wellness, and happiness outcomes. And, he found that stress from friendships was the most significant factor in predicting chronic illness over time (Chopik, 2017). So long story short \u2013 friend relationships are not just necessary to fill our need to belong, they\u2019re important for our long-term health and happiness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are friendships so special? As Jem Finch so eloquently put it in Harper Lee\u2019s <\/span>To Kill A Mockingbird,<\/span><\/i> \u201cYou can choose your friends but you sho\u2019 can\u2019t choose your family\u201d (p. 300). Though only a 10-year-old, Jem recognized a pretty poignant fact of life: Friend relationships are unique because <\/span>you\u2019re not forced<\/b> into them like you are with your family. And, while you choose who you become friends with, you also choose who you <\/span>stay<\/span><\/i> friends with (Beck, 2015).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sooo, if friends are so important to us, how do we <\/span>find<\/span><\/i> them and how do we <\/span>keep<\/span><\/i> them?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Making friends<\/span><\/a> comes naturally to us. We make friends by sharing similar interests, values, experiences and close proximity, and by spending time together, among other factors. From personal experience, I\u2019ve found that sharing a difficult experience with another person can <\/span>really<\/span><\/i> bring you together. Think of that friend you made while trying to survive EC10. You probably met in office hours after your first midterm (which you both failed miserably) and decided that in order to merely pass the class, you had to religiously attend office hours in order to get answers to p-sets and maybe \u2013 just maybe \u2013 grasp a slight understanding of basic economics. After the second office hours, you notice each other, exchange numbers, and plan to meet up outside of class to study and get each other through the class. BOOM \u2013 you\u2019re now friends. You\u2019ve found someone that makes you feel comfortable in the class; you\u2019ve found someone with whom you feel you belong.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that you\u2019ve made your new friend, how do you keep her? Maintaining friendships is the harder of the two \u2013 it requires <\/span>a lot<\/span><\/i> more effort. It requires that you expand on what initially brought you together and also engage in reciprocity, equity, and cognitive capacity. It requires an emotional <\/span>investment<\/b>. The will to share your cognitive capacity with someone can really test a friendship, especially in a virtual setting. The pandemic has forced us to evaluate what relationships we really want to keep. Without the ease of seeing our friends daily and knowing what they\u2019re up to all the time, it\u2019s difficult to carry on conversations without them feeling stilted or simply nostalgic for the past. It can also be hard if you feel like you\u2019re the only one putting in the effort. Though it may be easy to blame the pandemic for making it difficult to maintain these friendships, you could see it as an opportunity to evaluate which friendships are most important to you because those that you\u2019re making an effort to maintain are the ones that you\u2019re going to keep.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Going back to that friend from EC10 \u2013 the odds of you keeping her as a friend are low if you don\u2019t invest in each other\u2019s lives outside of class. Though you may have bonded from seeing each other frequently and sharing in a similar, utterly horrible, experience, your friendship will not last the length of time if you don\u2019t take the cognitive capacity to invest yourself emotionally. Losing a friend like that is not something to cry over, though! That friend will just be a weak tie that simply adds value to your day when you occasionally see her, and, we all know that the more weak-tie interactions we have, the happier we\u2019ll be (Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014)!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Acquaintances (Andre)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An essential interim step on the road to a life full of friendships is amassing a network of acquaintances. While casual, \u201cweak ties\u201d might not feel that meaningful in the moment, they add up to something pretty big. Random conversations and occasional run-ins remind us that we\u2019re worthy of attention and can relish the experiences of all types of people. Having more weak-tie, acquaintance-type interactions makes us feel better, more belonging in our community, and overall more satisfied with life (Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014). That\u2019s quite a haul for small talk at the coffee shop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Acquaintances broaden our world view and build empathy by exposing us to more and more personal stories (Volpe, 2019). We only have the time and capacity to deeply know so many people, but we can learn a ton by opening ourselves to those people we might only ever kind of know. They could be a link to a new job, hobby, or way of seeing the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Other research even suggests that being ignored by those who barely know us can hurt more than being ignored by more familiar people (Snapp & Leary, 2001). One idea that comes to mind for why that could be is that unfamiliar people who choose to ignore us have made the quick judgment that we\u2019re not worthy of interaction or we must be doing something wrong or some essential part of our being is just off for them. We\u2019re left to wonder and feel micro-rejected by that weak-tie. We can fend off those feelings if we all keep up on our casual friendships.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ultimately, casual friendships can shape our lives in many ways that rival the more serious friendships that we pour energy into maintaining. They can blossom into those very friendships, and teach us a lot along the way regardless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Resources<\/b><\/p>\n

Beck, J. (2015). <\/span>How friendships change in adulthood<\/span><\/i>. The Atlantic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chopik, W. J. (2017). <\/span>Associations among relational values, support, health, and well-being across the<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

adult lifespan<\/span><\/i>. Personal Relationships, 24(2), 408-422.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lee, H. (2010). To kill a mockingbird. New York: Grand Central Publishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pickett, C. L., Gardner, W. L., & Knowles, M. (2004). Getting a cue: The need to belong and enhanced<\/span><\/p>\n

sensitivity to social cues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1095-1107.<\/span><\/p>\n

Running Hug GIF – Running Hug Embrace – Discover & Share GIFs. (2020). Retrieved 16<\/span><\/p>\n

October 2020, from <\/span>https:\/\/tenor.com\/view\/running-hug-embrace-imiss-you-good-to-see-you-again-gif-15965620<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Social interactions and well-being: The surprising<\/span><\/p>\n

power of weak ties. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(7), 910-922.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snapp, C. M., & Leary, M. R. (2001). Hurt feelings among new acquaintances: <\/span> Moderating effects of interpersonal familiarity. <\/span>Journal of Social and Personal <\/span><\/i> Relationships<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>18<\/span><\/i>(3), 315-326.<\/span><\/p>\n

Swift, Taylor. (2009, June 16). <\/span>Taylor Swift \u2013 You belong with me<\/span><\/i> [Video file]. Retrieved from<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Volpe, A. (2019, May 07). Why You Need a Network of Low-Stakes, Casual Friendships. <\/span> Retrieved October 16, 2020<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends (Grace)   We\u2019ve already learned that one of our most basic needs as humans is to feel like we belong – in a place, with people, or just in life (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004). Feeling like we belong creates a sense of comfort and safety; it gives our lives meaning and reaffirms, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9879,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}