The friend number paradox.

Abstract

We identify a friend number paradox, that is, a mismatch between people's preferences for the friends they might acquire in social interactions and their predictions of others' preferences. People predict that others are attracted to them if they have a relatively large number of friends. However, they personally prefer to make friends with someone who has a relatively small number of friends. People regard a large number of friends as a signal of social capital that increases their interpersonal attractiveness. However, it can actually be a signal of social liabilities that diminish their ability to reciprocate obligations to others. We conducted a series of studies, including 3 speed-friending studies in which participants either engaged or expected to engage in actual interactions for the purpose of initiating long-term friendships. These studies provide converging evidence of the hypothesized mismatch and our conceptualization of its determinants.

Virtual speed dating: Utilizing online‐meeting platforms to study initial attraction and relationship formation

“…By separating participants of mixed‐sex events into same‐sex lobbies (as we did), virtual speed‐dating studies permit the large‐scale, observational study of affiliative processes via recordings of those larger group settings. Moreover, the virtual speed “dating” procedures could also be adapted to a virtual speed “friending” design (see Si et al, 2021), which would permit observational study of dyadic behavior between two potential friends.…”