The One About Me, Friendships, and the Final Blog

Looking through the chapter, though romantic relationships are looked at a great deal, I was struck by how much my friendships at college lined up with the characteristic being discussed. Particularly, how proximity, exposure, and similarity play into the development of relationships.

To elaborate, the Proximity Effect is the idea that people usually form relationships with those who are physically near them (Latané et al., 1995). In fact, one study found that college students were more likely to form friendships with other residents in nearby apartments than those students that lived further away (Festinger et al., 1950). In a similar vein, the Mere Exposure Effect is the tendency to more positively evaluate a stimulus the more often one is exposed to it (Zajonc, 1968). This effect has even been demonstrated with stimuli that were presented too fast to be fully registered by the participants (Kuntz-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980). Specifically, the participants were shown several stimuli for one to five milliseconds, and some stimuli were presented more often than others. After this presentation, the participants were shown each of the stimuli and asked if they liked it and had seen it before. Though they usually said they had never seen the stimuli, they would still more positively rate the stimuli that had been presented more often than the ones that had been presented less often. Finally, when discussing what factors lead to forming a relationship, Similarity was a major one. That is, people tend to form relationships with people who are similar to them in multiple ways. There are four types of similarity that are most relevant: demographic, attitudes, attractiveness, and subjective experience. Specifically, it has been found that friends, lovers, dates, and partners tend to resemble each other on a variety of demographic information (age, education, race, SES, etc.) more so than randomly paired couples (Warren, 1966). Similarly, it has been found that people tend to marry others who share their political attitudes, religiosity, and values (Luo & Klohnen, 2005). Though this deals more so with romantic relationships, attractiveness also plays a part in the formation of relationships, so much so that it gets its own concept. The Matching Hypothesis is the idea that people tend to form romantic relationships with others who are similarly attractive (Feingold, 1988). Finally, similarity in terms of subjective experience can trigger the formation of a relationship. In other words, people tend to like others who have the same or similar experiences as them because they feel they have shared a subjective experience, which has been called “I-sharing” (Pinel et al., 2006). Furthermore, it has been found that people do tend to like people they have “I-shared” more so than others, even if the “I-shares” have dissimilar backgrounds to them (Pinel et al., 2006).

Looking at my friendships here at Southwestern, all these things ring true, except for similarity in attractiveness. That is, the majority of my friends lived on the same floor as me freshmen year, so we were close in proximity to each other and exposed to one another on a daily basis. Furthermore, my closest friends are the ones that I have the most in common with (similarities). For instance, my best friend is my roommate, so we often share subjective experiences, which fortifies our friendship. Furthermore, we have similar backgrounds (such as SES and divorced parents) and similar attitudes and opinions about things (such as gay marriage and abortion).

Feingold, A. (1988). Matching for attractiveness in romantic partners and same-sex friends: A meta-analysis and theoretical critique. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 226-235.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S., & Back, K.W. (1950). Social pressures in informal groups: A study of human factors in housing. New York: Harper.

Kuntz-Wilson, W., & Zajonc, R.B. (1980). Affective discrimination of stimuli that cannot be recognized. Sience, 207, 557-558.

Latané, B., Liu, J.H., Nowak, A., Bonevento, M., & Zheng, L. (1995). Distance matters: Physical space and social impact. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 795-805.

Luo, S., & Klohnen, E.C. (2005). Assortative mating and marital quality in newlyweds: A couple-centered approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 304-326.

Pinel, E.C., Long, A.E., Landau, M.J., Alexander, K., & Pyszcynski, T. (2006). Seeing I to I: A pathway to interpersonal connectedness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 243-257.

Warren, B.L. (1966). A multiple variable approach to the assertive mating phenomenon. Eugenics Quarterly, 13, 285-298.

Zajonc, R.B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph Supplement, 9(2), 1-27.