MOST PEOPLE YOU THINK OF AS YOUR FRIENDS AREN’T

According to researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, only around half of the people you call your friends would agree with that judgment. The study, titled “Are You Your Friends’ Friend?”, and published in the journal Plos One, found that this misunderstanding can lead many to overestimate their influence among their peers and form cooperative relationships. For example, in one survey, participants were asked to rate other participants on a scale ranging from zero to five, with zero standing for “I don’t know this person,” to signifying “One of my best friends.” Ninety-five percent of participants misidentified relationships as reciprocal friendships.
– Two factors play an important role in social influence, reciprocity and directionality. According to the authors, “Individuals commonly assume their affective relationships to be reciprocal by default.” In other words, if I consider you to be my friend, surely you think of me as yours. These assumptions turned out to be wrong about half of the time.
* There are only two ways to find out who your friends really are: 1) “Can you drive me to the airport?” and 2) “Could you help me move this weekend?”
* Maybe people taking the survey thought it meant Facebook friends?
* If you’re trying to say there’s a lot of phoniness in the world, I think we got that already.
* Try not to let this put a damper on your Memorial Day get-together.
* Even though about half the people you’re cooking burgers for actually think you suck.
* A scale ranging from zero to five? Well, it doesn’t get much more comprehensive than that.
* All I remember is the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
* That didn’t help, did it?
(study published here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0151588)
* PHONE TOPIC: I Thought She Was My Friend, Until …”