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Study: People Think They Have More Friends Than They Really Do
Trending News: Half The People You Know Don't Consider You A Friend
Why Is This Important?
Because your friend network probably isn't as big as you think.
Long Story Short
People tend to overestimate how many friends they have, according to a bummer of a study. The researchers found that about half of the people you believe are your friends don't feel the same way.
Think you're Mr. Popular with friends far and wide? Sadly, you might want to reconsider, judging by a study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers asked 84 undergraduate college students to rate every other person participating in the study on a scale ranging from “I do not know this person” to “One of my best friends," explains New York Magazine. But while the vast majority of the participants thought the people they considered their friends felt the same way about them, the feeling wasn't always mutual. Rather, it was even worse than you'd think. Just 53 percent of the friendships people reported they had were reciprocal.
“These findings suggest a profound inability of people to perceive friendship reciprocity, perhaps because the possibility of non-reciprocal friendship challenges one’s self-image,” the study authors wrote.
I know what you're thinking. Just 84 undergraduate students, pshh that's as fickle a group as they come. But the researchers took that into account and tallied up results from previous studies. What they found was that the highest proportion of reciprocal friendships was 53 percent, and the lowest was a pretty sad 34 percent.
So should you start looking twice at your network extra closely to make sure they like you back? Up to you, but I wouldn't. You probably know who your close friends are based on how much they have your back. It's all about quality not quantity anyways.
Own The Conversation
Ask The Big Question
Are you sure all the people you consider your friend feel the same way?
Disrupt Your Feed
News flash: Just because someone is your Facebook friend doesn't mean they're your real friend.
Drop This Fact
According to oft-cited research by Dr. Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford, our brains only have the capacity to make connections with between 100 to 200 people.