THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE AT YOUNG AGE

IS DONE BY A STUDENT II COURSES FIA

BORISOV RUSLAN

SCIENTIFIC LEADER: ZAV. DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY,

Associate Professor G. I. Kislova

MAKHACHKALA 2002

1. BORDER: FRIEND IS A FRIEND.

2. IS IT EASY TO FIND A REAL FRIEND?

3. WHOM IS CHOSEN FRIENDS.

4. FEATURES OF GIRL FRIENDSHIP

5. WHAT BEFORE?

6. LOVE. LOVE IS PASSION.

7. LOVE.

8. LOVE: EAST - WEST.

"The first feeling to which a carefully educated young man is receptive is not love, but friendship."

J.-J. Russo.

Friendship is the most important form of emotional attachment and interpersonal relationships in adolescence. Very often you can hear the opinion that under the influence of the increased mobility of society, the acceleration of the rhythm of life and the expansion of the circle of friends, the friendly relations of modern youth are becoming more superficial and extensive, that friendship is being supplanted by wide friendly relations based on common interests, etc. The highest moral values ​​- and friendship at all times was considered as such - have always been in short supply. The psychological patterns of youthful friendship - be it its ideal or real properties - are surprisingly stable and manifest themselves in a wide variety of social and cultural environments. Another thing is that the friendship of different people is never the same, but has age, gender and individual-typological variations.

The age dynamics of friendship, like other interpersonal relations, is measured primarily by the degree of its selectivity, stability and intimacy. The growing need for intimate communication inevitably psychologizes the concept of friendship. All these qualities increase with the transition from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to youth. If schoolchildren and elementary schoolchildren do not distinguish between friendship and camaraderie, then adolescents already consider friendship an exclusive, individual relationship. A group of teenagers was given the following task: to add an unfinished sentence: “A friend and a friend are not exactly the same, because ...” Some emphasized the closeness and trust of friendship (“a friend knows everything about you”, “you will never share that you trust a friend "). The rest noted the great strength, stability of friendship ("a friend is chosen for life"), mutual assistance ("a friend will let you down, a friend never (!)) An even more vivid picture is given by the distribution of answers according to the sentence:" A friend is the one who ... " sentences that are not bound by the framework of comparison, two motives prevail: the demand for mutual assistance and loyalty and the expectation of sympathetic understanding on the part of a friend. If friendship and friendship are more or less strictly delineated, then the number of friends should not be particularly large, one or two at most. This hypothesis is confirmed. The number of friends from 7 to 10 grades decreases, and friends - increases. This is indicative of the growing individualization and selectivity of friendship. The increase in the selectivity of friendly relations is accompanied by an increase in their stability, therefore the most important shift in the psychology of adolescent friendship is the growth of its depth and psychological intimacy. In the sphere of interpersonal relations, this is expressed in the growth of tolerance: a quarrel, which in younger adolescents would mean the end of friendship, in adolescence is perceived as a particularity that can be neglected in order to preserve a deeper community.

Youthful friendship is semi-functional in nature, this, first of all, explains the diversity of its forms: from simple joint pastime to the deepest confession and self-disclosure. But unlike group relationships, which are based on some kind of joint activity, friendship is primarily an emotional attachment. The psychological value of youthful friendship in that it is both a school of self-disclosure and a school of understanding another person.

But no matter how nice it is for a young man to feel strong and needed, this type of relationship still does not correspond to his idea of ​​friendship. While communication with a younger one is important, it is perceived more as an addition to peer friendship than as an alternative. For those who are exceptional friends with younger ones, the choice is in most cases forced. Either this is a consequence of a developmental lag, when in terms of interests and behavior the young man is objectively closer to the younger than to his peers, or the result of some psychological difficulties: shyness, fear of competition, especially characteristic of boyish companies, inconsistency in the level of aspirations and opportunities, etc. ... The transfer of emotional attachment to the younger in this case is compensatory.

Friendship occupies an exclusive, privileged place among youthful affections. To the question: "Is there often a real friendship among your peers?" from 45 to 72% of high school students answered that it is rare, and the share of optimistic answers is decreasing. This indicates, first of all, an increase in the level of requirements for friendship and an increase in the complexity of its criteria. Psychological closeness with friends, the measure of understanding attributed to them and their own frankness by them in their youth is maximum and significantly exceeds all other relationships. From a friend, the young man expects not only estimates close to his own self-esteem, but also exceeding it. In reality, everything happens the same way. This serves as an indirect confirmation of the idea that one of the main unconscious functions of youthful friendship is maintaining the self-esteem of the individual. Youth friendship is also unique in terms of age. As the first self-selected deep individual attachment, it not only anticipates it, but partly includes it.

However, in the friendship of young men, the contradictions of this age are also clearly manifested. The known uncertainty and instability of ideas about one's own "I" give rise to a desire to test oneself by playing out some unusual roles, acting, self-reflection. The young man suffers from the fact that he does not have enough means and opportunities to express his inner world. But the trouble is not so much the lack of funds, as in the real ambiguity, incompleteness of one's "I". The American psychologist E. Dauvan aptly put it on this occasion, saying: "A young man does not choose friendship, he is literally drawn into it." Needing strong emotional attachments, young people sometimes do not notice the real properties of their object. For all their exclusivity, friendships in such cases are usually short-lived. “People are chosen as objects and then abandoned, not caring at all about their feelings, replacing them with other persons. Abandoned objects are quickly and completely forgotten, but the form of attitude towards them is usually reproduced in relation to a new object down to the smallest detail, with an accuracy similar to an obsession. Youth is emotional; high school students are passionately fond of new people, ideas, deeds. Although these hobbies are sometimes short-lived, they help to survive and master a lot of new things in a short time. Unwillingly, the young man turns into an object of observation not only other people, but also his own feelings and experiences. Even in first love, he is carried away not so much by the object as by his own feelings about this. Adolescent and adolescent egocentrism narrows the possibilities of interpersonal communication, generates a kind of pseudo-intimacy, when, with external closeness, friends actually do not hear each other. However, this is due to some new moments in the life of adolescents, and with frequent sincere communication, self-disclosure and understanding by young men of each other increases. Unbridled frankness is very much appreciated at the beginning of a friendship, but at the time of a quarrel, intimate confessions are used in order to hurt each other deeper. The psychology of youthful friendship closely related to personality traits. Communication properties are very stable. First of all, it should be noted age and sex characteristics. Based on the available data, the need for deep intimate friendship arises in girls one and a half to two times earlier than in boys, and girlish friendships are generally more emotional. Girlish criteria for friendship are subtler are more saturated with psychological motives, girls are more likely to experience a lack of intimacy than adolescents. The motive of understanding in the definition of friendship is expressed in girls at all ages more strongly than in boys, and they fill this word itself with not exactly the same content. In communicating with girlfriends, girls have more intimate themes than boys. These differences are very significant, but it must be emphasized that they are not only gender, but age and gender. The point is not only that women are generally more emotional, attach more importance to interpersonal relationships and are more inclined to self-disclosure than men, but also that girls mature earlier, they develop complex forms of consciousness earlier, and, consequently, the need for intimate friendship.

The individual-typological features of friendship, manifested, in particular, in the degree of its depth and exclusivity, have been poorly studied. Temperament seems to be an important factor; Impulsive people open up more easily to others, and this elicits an emotional response, making it easier to establish friendly contact. There are people whose need for psychological friendship is generally underdeveloped; this is a consequence not only of egoism or emotional poverty, but also of the hypertrophy of the achievement motive: a person who is completely absorbed in objective activity pays less attention to his own experiences and the people around him.

One of the most common problems of adolescence is shyness, but a favorable intracollective climate and intimate friendship help boys and girls overcome shyness and are of great psychotherapeutic value in this sense.

The question of the relationship between the genesis of self-awareness and psychological intimacy became the subject of a dispute between two American psychologists - E.G. Erickson and G.S. Sullivan. According to Erickson, the formation of identity, i.e. integral self-conscious I, precedes the maturation of the personality of the ability to sustained psychological closeness with another person. “Only when the formation of identity is basically completed does true intimacy become possible, which in fact is both a fusion and opposition of individualities ... A young man who is not sure of his identity avoids interpersonal intimacy or is prone to such intimacy in which there is only appearance” compatibility ", but without true fusion or real self-forgetfulness." In a word, Erickson believes that first a person must complete the construction of his Self, and then make friends.

In contrast to Erickson, Sullivan believes that it is psychological intimacy, confirmation and approval from a loved one that reveals a person's true essence and allows him to find a stable I. altruistic attitude. Thus, it is a friend who allows a person to build his Self.

In general, the age dynamics of friendship cannot be understood without taking into account who communicates with whom, how and for what reason. And the boundaries between "youthful" and "adult" friendship inevitably become mobile and conditional.

CONCLUSION.

We examined the most important socio-historical and psychological laws of friendship, trying, wherever possible, to rely not on general reasoning, but on the strict facts of science.

The very need for friendship - moral need, which elevates the personality, makes it kinder, more humane, more generous to people. As V.A. Sukhomlinsky, “it is friendship that is one of the spheres of fostering love for a person, mutual respect, a sense of the subtlest emotional movements in another person”. The moral code of friendship embodies culturally developed ideas about what must be human relationships. And the degree to which this ideal is realized largely depends on our efforts.

Love is a more complex phenomenon than attachment, and therefore more difficult to define and study. People crave love, live for it, die because of it, and yet only in the last few years has love become a serious research topic in social psychology.

An interesting fact is when people are asked why they are friends with someone or what attracts them in a partner, most readily answer: "I like Helen because she is gentle, witty, well-read." Such explanations leave aside what social psychologists consider most important - ourselves. When we say that someone is attractive, we mean that he is attractive to someone, that is, to themselves. Therefore, more accurate from a psychological point of view would be the answer: “I like Helen because I like how I feel being around her.” We are attracted to such people, and we enjoy this intimacy.

The first thing we must do when we begin to scientifically study romantic love is to decide how to define and measure it. Elizabeth Barrett Browning posed the exact same question: “Why do I love you? Let's take a look at the reasons. " Social scientists have identified a variety of reasons. Psychologist Robert Sternbegr views love as a triangle, the three sides of which (different in length) are passion, intimacy and devotion. Sociologist John Alan Lee and psychologists Clyde Hendrick and Suson Hendrick identified three fundamental love styles: eros passion, ludus play, storge friendship, which, like the primary colors of the spectrum, combine to form secondary love styles. Some styles, notably eros, are more likely to have high relationship satisfaction, while others, such as ludus, are more likely to be less satisfying. Some love styles are typical for all love couples: mutual understanding, mutual support, pleasure in communicating with each other. Some of the elements are distinctive features. When we experience passionate love, we express it physically. We consider this relationship exceptional, simply fascinated by our partner, you can see it in our eyes. Rubin found confirmation of this. He offered his "love scale" to hundreds of young couples from the University of Michigan students. He watched the "weak loving" and "strong loving" couples in the waiting room through one-sided mirrored glass. The result did not surprise him: the "very loving" couples paid little attention to those around them and mostly did not take their eyes off each other.

Love is passion emotional, exciting, intense. Elaine Hatfield defines it as "a state of irresistible desire to connect with a loved one." If the feeling is mutual, we are overwhelmed with love and experience joy, if not, it devastates us and leads to a state of despair. Like other forms of emotional excitement, passionate love is a mixture of delight and despondency, joyful awe and dreary dejection.

Passionate love is understood as a state of "falling in love". If someone says, “I love you, but I'm not in love with you,” it means, “I like you. I care about you. I think you are wonderful. But I'm not sexually attracted to you. " In other words: "I feel" storge "(love-friendship) towards you," but not eros (passion). "

Love-passion: a state of powerful attraction to union with another person. Passionate lovers completely immerse themselves in each other, come into ecstasy when they seek the love of their partner, and inconsolable when they lose it.

Are there any differences between a man and a woman experiencing sensual love? The study of men and women who began to fall in love and then fell out of love has yielded amazing results. Most people, including the author of the next letter, assume that women are more likely to fall in love.

“Dear Dr. Brothers, you will probably also say that it is not worthy of a nineteen-year-old boy to fall in love so much that it seems that the whole world has turned upside down. It looks like I'm crazy, because it happened to me several times already: you live your life, and suddenly - love falls like snow on your head. My father declares that only girls fall in love like this, this does not happen with guys, at least it should not. I can no longer change, and this worries me. Max."

Max should be reassured, because numerous studies indicate that it is men who are more amorous, expressive and sometimes, on the basis of this, commit rash acts. Also, men seem to be slower to recover from falling in love. And, unlike women, they are less inclined to break off relations when it comes to getting married. However, women in love are emotionally involved in love relationships almost more strongly than their partners, and it is they who are more inclined to say that they feel euphoria, pleasant dizziness and carelessness, that they seem to be "floating in the clouds." Unlike men, they are more likely to focus on the intimate trust of the relationship and the need to take care of their partner. Men, on the other hand, are more interested in the playful and physical side of their relationship.

Passionate love, no matter how passionate it is, inevitably eventually fades away. The longer the relationship, the less emotional ups and downs. Passionate love can last for several months, sometimes for a couple of years, but no passion can last forever. Strong attraction to each other, romantic excitement, the feeling of dizzying "soaring in the clouds" is coming to naught. After two years of marriage, the spouses talk about half as much in love with each other than when they were newlyweds. If the close bond continues, it becomes smoother and more stable and even retains a slight romantic highlight. This connection Hatfield called love-friendship. Unlike the turbulent emotions of sensual love, love-friendship "sounds in lower tones" - it is a deep and tender affection. Thus, when two people unite, their hearts are engulfed in flames, they are possessed by great passion. After some time, the flame goes out, and nothing can be done about it. The two continue to love each other, but in a different way with warmth and devotion. Passion is doomed to fade away. After the end of love-passion, lovers, divorced ones, are surprised to notice how empty life seems to be without a person to whom they have long ceased to feel passionate affection. By focusing their attention on what they are missing, they have stopped noticing what they really have. Here we should consider the rhythm of sensual love in those who entered into a marriage of convenience and love. Usha Gubta and Pushpa Singh asked 50 married couples in India to fill out the Zeke Rubin's love scale and found that those who married for love reported that the love feeling was waning if their marriage lasted more than 5 years. Those who married for convenience, on the contrary, noted an increase in feelings compared to the period when they were newlyweds. Chilling passionate romantic love often leads to disappointment, especially for those who considered such love necessary, both for marriage and for its stability in the future. It is quite possible that weakening the fascination with each other is natural adaptive process, designed to ensure the viability of the species.

To summarize, I want to quote the words of Mark Twain: "No man and no woman have a clue of what love is until they have lived together in marriage for a quarter of a century." And if the feeling was strong and mutual, friendly love is strengthened.

Love-friendship: the tenderness that we feel for the person whose life is closely intertwined with our own.

Marrying a woman you love and who loves you is like betting with her about who will stop loving whom first.

Albert Camus.

After studying in America, the graduates returned to their homeland in Indonesia and wrote to her teacher: “I don’t know if I’ll get married soon. It just so happened that during my last year of study in the States, I truly fell in love with my best friend's brother. I would very much like to marry him, but here marriage does not necessarily mean love. If my family doesn't like the idea of ​​marrying this young man, I can only submit to their will. Just submit if I want to be a good Muslim. If this happens I don't know what I will do next. But no matter what happens, I know that there will be no more dating in my life. One of my family members or relatives will introduce me to the son of a well-known person. I will have the right to talk to him, see him 3-4 times and after that it will be enough for me to say “yes”, but I have the right to refuse. I truly believe that if a person has a good heart, love will come by itself, naturally and beautifully. " In the West, in most cases, a girl has the right to choose a boyfriend for herself, meet with him as much as she wants, and only then, if she wishes, marry him. Here is the fundamental difference between the question love: West - East.

References:

1. IS Kon, Friendship (psychological essays).

2. IS Kon, Psychology of adolescence.

If the relationship between representatives of different genders is involved in tender feelings for each other and there is no friendship, this is not true love. Is there an optimal balance between friendship and attraction to each other?

According to family psychologists, friendship between partners is a condition for the couple's long-term relationship, since if friendship is removed, intimate relationships, children, home life, and relations with neighbors will remain. And to be friends means the ability to talk, have a common outlook and, live, rejoice at success, be sad in case of failure of one of the partners. It follows from this that married life is impossible without friendship.

To the question of whether friendship interferes with falling in love with each other, there will be the following answer:

Love and friendship: what is it?

A strong mutual feeling, a deep predisposition of two people who are ready to give each other the best, even to the detriment of themselves - this is love.

Trusting, sincere contacts between people with common hobbies, interests, are friendly relations.

What is the difference between these feelings? In a friendly relationship, a friend will always come to the rescue. Friendship is like a mutually beneficial cooperation. If you delve into the subconscious, during friendly relations, comrades expect returns from each other and act to some extent selfishly. Friendship is based on joint actions, common interests.

Meanwhile, love is an unselfish feeling, it is given from head to toe and requires nothing in return. A person, being happy in love, makes his soul mate happy as well. There is no selfishness in this feeling.

There is more affection in love than in friendship, since in the latter there is no passion, feelings between partners. Relationships in friendship are strong and tender, devoid of lust. Such relationships often operate between same-sex representatives. Male friendship is created on some events, and female - on emotions and desires to discuss actions. Love is the relationship of two loving hearts, and friendship can be with several people.

Friendship gives a person a fuller sense of himself in reality and it is not surprising that when we change ourselves, our friends also change. Often, people's friendship falls apart when they have nothing to share and mutual interest in something goes away. But with love, the situation is completely different. She gives a person wings and a person undergoes changes, creating a new level of living.

So, let's summarize:

Love is the romantic approach of two loving hearts, and friendship is a frank, sincere feeling between people, based on trust, patience and reciprocity.
Friendship primarily exists between same-sex members.
Friendship often turns into love, and love rarely turns into friendship.
When love is true, it is completely disinterested, meanwhile friendship is a little selfish, since it is beneficial to all those who participate in it.
Friendship is based and rests on mutual interest, common hobbies, and love relationships - on feelings.
Friendship is not a passionate, sensual relationship.

Barriers Affecting Intersex Friendship

The most common cause that affects friendship between the sexes is intimate tension. This is due to the fact that women expect more sensitivity and trust from these relationships, and therefore they are easily injured for mental trauma. According to men, the intimate relationship between them not only does not destroy friendship, but makes it more stable.
The problem of public misunderstanding. Many people do not believe that there can be a true and fulfilling friendship between members of different genders, and when they are seen together, they believe that they are actually lovers, but not friends.
Romance is another barrier to friendship. Friendships will quickly deteriorate if you hint at them. Therefore, if you do not want to, avoid such hints and respect the friend's right to his own life. Do not arouse romance in you and refrain from provoking relationships in such situations. Don't talk about personal topics often. Often, joint activities expand, they begin to interfere with work and, of course, friendly relations.

Sexual Friendship Reasons - Romantic Motives

Groups with love motives:

The first group, in which friendship turns into romance, includes adolescents. Why is this happening? Maybe adolescents are unable to exercise control over their emotions? They often don’t know what it is: friendship or romance.
The second group is made up of people who are in an unsuccessful marriage, where dissatisfaction with the relationship affects. Instead of talking with a spouse, many of them are looking for positive romantic relationships on the side. It is very interesting to make a friendship with a member of the opposite sex. There are those who understand that such a period will come and the marriage will fall apart. Then they make friends on the side, as if looking for a backup option for themselves, without realizing that they are looking for a replacement for their half.
The third group includes those who get married and agree to a long-term relationship. They are looking for a mate and consider such friendship the beginning of a relationship.

Dangers Threatening Friendship

There was a time when it was believed that it does not exist. This idea is rooted in ancient times, when a woman sat by the fire and waited for the breadwinner from the hunt. Then other relationships were unthinkable, and modern psychologists believe that the reasons for their relationship were reproduction, not friendship. Consequently, for a long time, friendship between the sexes was not perceived.

At present, much has changed, and a woman has become a breadwinner, and protection, reproduction and other instincts have remained in the background. Currently, representatives of the stronger and weaker sex are engaged in versatile activities. They work and work together in many areas of life: in science, culture, sports, politics. But to this day, friendship between the sexes is considered a rare occurrence.

It also happens that love hides behind a friendly mask. This does not mean that if they are friends, then, for example, a woman is in love with him. But maybe a representative of the stronger sex is secretly in love with her? Therefore, you need to distinguish friendship from love relationships.
Another obstacle to love is the following. If you are married, married, or getting married, then being friends with the other sex will create jealousy. So, do not pay as much attention to a friend or girlfriend as to a regular partner or spouse. Be careful, because after some time, friendship will turn into love and can become an obstacle to union with a loved one.
The next obstacle to friendship is unrequited love. Before making friends, think about the possibility of falling in love. Is this friendship worth such suffering? After all, unrequited love is suffering. Many are sure that this will not happen to them. No one knows for sure that friendship will not turn into love.

Former lovers become friends because they have a common passion and hobby. Uncommon, but ex-spouses who share children can also be friends. Since trust is the most important thing in friendship, it also happens that a partner who was attracted to another suppresses the feeling and rejects the part of his personality that is responsible for it. It turns out that he is honest with his friend, but not with himself. His inner conflict is growing. But, you need to be careful so that sooner or later the attraction would not splash out.

According to the opinions of the male sex, friendship with the beautiful half of humanity is a way out for them, since they talk with them on such topics that they would not talk with male friends.
Since men cannot be rivals of women, therefore, the latter are friends with men. They joke a lot, talk, talk about pressing problems with them without feeling competitive.

Love, respect each other and be friends at the same time. Do not cease to amaze your friends with your affection, trust, and your spouses - with disinterested love and devotion.

Many people believe that love and friendship are not very different from each other. But these are completely different concepts.

And we must learn to share these feelings in order to avoid unpleasant situations in the future.

Why such a dilemma arises

In fact, it is safe to say that friendship is impossible without love, just like love without friendship.

But, if in the first case, people are connected only by friendly relations, then in the second, passion is also possible. Friendship of two people can arise on the basis of a common outlook on life, this is spiritual closeness.

Love, however, presupposes the emergence and physical intimacy with a person. In order not to lose this connection, you need to work hard to strengthen the relationship.

As indicated in psychology

It is worth considering the different points of view of scholars on the types of friendship. Many argue that this feeling cannot arise between a man and a woman.

On a subconscious level, we choose a circle for communication, based on external data. Therefore, a man and a woman probably like each other if they communicate closely. That, sooner or later, can develop into sexual attraction.

Let's move on to same-sex friendship. It is known that men are able to communicate with each other without gossip, resentment, which is often observed in relations between two girlfriends.

Of course, there are exceptions, we have seen many examples of strong friendship not only among men, but also among women. You can love a person, but there are no common topics of conversation between you.

And friendship implies the presence of common interests, tolerance. you can keep it in your heart without telling anyone about it. But you cannot be friends with a person so that he does not know about it.

If unpleasant things are said about a friend behind his back (about excess weight, smoking, appearance), then you will protect him, forbid even to think badly.

But in private, get me to go to the gym, quit smoking, or drag me to the nearest beauty salon. But no one will know about this, except for the two of you.

What's more important: love and friendship

This question can never be answered unequivocally. Someone will argue that real friendship will last longer than, therefore, the first feeling should be preferred.

But we are not immune from mistakes, we can even part with the best friends, as with the groom or the bride. Therefore, everyone makes their own choice.

Often, the other half prohibits communicating with friends, resenting the fact that little time is given to her.

It will not be possible to avoid scandals, a person is forced to find a compromise or make a difficult choice: love or friendship. But society as a whole cannot be convinced which feeling is more important.

Where exactly is the relationship

You can highlight the common features of friendship and love. Friends and people in love are ready to spend hours talking about their lives, giving out secrets that they would never share with other people.

Soon, grievances and quarrels are forgotten. Neither a friend nor a loved one will ever betray or leave you in trouble.

You will be accepted with all the peculiarities, they will endure a difficult character, and in every possible way protect you from attacks from other people. On the other hand, friendship is more about sharing.

That is, a friend listens to you, tries to help, in the depths of his soul hoping that you will answer him later in kind. And love is an unselfish feeling when you do not hope to receive a reward for your care, attention, help.

Let's highlight the main points:

• love relationships are based on feelings, and friendship is based on common interests, worldview;
• are friends, most often, people of the same sex;
• passion can only arise in love;
• if jealousy is observed in a relationship, then one can no longer talk about friendship.

Can friendship grow into love

Definitely yes. Not all friends experience this moment, but many. The development of events will be ideal if one person falls in love, admits his feelings, and they turn out to be mutual.

It is not for nothing that they say that a marriage between old friends is considered perhaps the strongest.
But it's unpleasant when love is not mutual.

Immediately there is stiffness in communication, shame, a desire to avoid encounters with the object of their dreams.

Love and friendship - is it the other way around?

Anything can happen in life. It happens that feelings cool down, and only friendship remains of great love. It's up to you to decide whether to continue this relationship.

The situation when friendship between former lovers is impossible:

Of course, if there are no obstacles to maintaining friendly relations, then this should not be neglected.

You will always have a person who knows you very well, who will be able to give practical advice, and who will deal with the problem.

Video: love and friendship. Treason. Relationship psychology from Marina Marinista

He will always help out if you need to water the flowers during a business trip or take the dog home. You will be able to communicate on frank topics, which is an important factor for many people.

But it is highly likely that a new boyfriend or girlfriend will be against such a relationship. Therefore, you will have to explain that the romance between you is already in the past, and you are living in the future.

The former spouses will have to maintain relations after the divorce, especially if there is a child left.

Both the father and the mother have the right to communicate with the baby, so adults will have to communicate so as not to harm the psyche of a son or daughter. The child will already experience the parting of the people closest to him.

Love and friendship are different concepts, but they have a lot in common. Love begins with friendship, and it can end with it. The main thing is to always remain human and respect each other.

What's between you? Love or friendship? What is the difference between them? Such commonplace questions are asked by people faced with relationship uncertainty. Trying to distinguish between familiarity and romance can sometimes confuse even the most philosophical minds.

Let's and we will try to determine what is the difference and similarity between these two so similar, but completely different concepts?

One can safely say that friendship without love can exist, but love without friendship can not. Friendship often gives rise to love and passion, and sincere love always contains friendly notes.

Affection, familiarity, sympathy, romance, passion, friendship - these are the constituent elements of the relationship between a man and a woman.

Never before has this connection been easy to understand and flawless in flow. And only with experience, getting burned and getting on the rake of life, each of us eventually finds that person with whom it is easier and easier to go through life.

How to distinguish friendship from love?

1. Friendship is rather a spiritual relationship between people based on mutual interest in each other: worldview, common interests, values ​​and thoughts. The formula for a love affair is sexual attraction multiplied by friendship. Everything, of course, is simple in words, but in reality it is not always cloudless.
2. Love is not just everyday relationships between people, it is an emotional and physical connection between a man and a woman, over which you have to laboriously work every day so as not to lose interest in each other.

Can friendship grow into love?

A scientific discipline such as psychology believes that friendship between a guy and a girl is an artificial kind of relationship. Such a relationship can exist for a long time only if there is sympathy between them, as well as if there are barriers to young people becoming lovers.

Nevertheless, the most successful and strongest marriages arise when passionate and romantic relationships grow out of friendships. Common interests, spending time together, solving some common situations can bring friends closer together. Then, having seen and appreciated each other in action, having tested the relationship for human strength, it is easier to build a life together, adding affectionate and caring moments to it.

And then real friendship flows into attraction, and then develops into mutual, true love. History knows many romantic relationships that began between two good friends.

The line between friendship and love

When communicating with a guy, you have already initially determined the level of relationship that is acceptable to you.

If there is sympathy, you flirt and flirt, resort to others "Feminine tricks and tricks", if you are interested exclusively in friendship, then the manifestations will be different.

But how do you know about the feelings of the second person?

You can't get into someone else's head and ask directly. And you don't want to spoil your relationship with him or hurt his heart if he is not indifferent to you. Or vice versa, it is necessary to win his sympathy and translate communication into a love channel.

How to determine: is it friendly or in love?

Indeed, there is a lot in common between emotional attachment and familiarity, but there are also differences. In order to further understand how love differs from friendship, let's take a step-by-step look at the commonality and differences between these concepts.

Similarities:

• You have a lot in common, you are comfortable and have fun together. Any topic of conversation is not a problem for you, and there are no secrets between you;
• Quarrels don't ruin your relationship in any way. And in the first and second cases, even when offended by each other, you will look for ways to make peace, you will miss and yearn, as if life has lost its meaning;
• Neither a friend nor a loved one will ever leave you in trouble or betray. If you come up with a problem, they will listen to you and give you advice, wipe away your tears and help you cope with difficulties;
• If you are faced with ridicule and attacks from the outside, then close people will stand up for you, even if you yourself were wrong about something;
• You are accepted for who you are, forgiving all the shortcomings, because your inner qualities make you who you really are.

Friendship is different from love:

Is friendship possible after love?

"Let's stay friends!"- this is how old love relationships most often end. Is this a final point or a real desire to redirect the relationship to a different level?

Of course, if after parting no one is offended, why not be friends?

It just happens that you are not right for each other to live together, but common interests and hobbies, similar outlook on life, working together and mutual friends allow you to have fun together. But this delicate matter has its own pitfalls.

You are not going to be alone and completely immerse yourself in a friendly relationship, are you?

Your future partner is unlikely to appreciate this kind of dedication to your former lover. Most likely, you will remain friends solely in words: a couple of comments on social networks, several times a year, congratulations on the holidays.

If the scenario of the ending of your parting was initially different: resentment, hatred, sadness, despair, loneliness, indifference, then, of course, there can be no talk of any friendship.

Remember, only future romantic and affectionate affection will save you from past passion. Therefore, do not hang your nose and look around: perhaps there is someone who is looking for a meeting with you and who considers the most delightful person in the world very close.

Sorting out feelings is quite difficult. The girl is sure that she really loves, and then suddenly she meets another person and realizes that there was nothing in the past. Young people get bored when parting and after a while they simply forget each other.

How to understand when you met your destiny, and when you just became attached to a person? How not to get confused?

You feel good and easy around a person, communication gives you great pleasure, and separation becomes unbearable, you yearn and look forward to meeting ... what is it? These are the "symptoms" of both love and attachment. Very often, young people cannot sort out their feelings, mistaking one for the other. At the same time, melancholy is often taken as an indicator of love.

But everyone wants love. It was she, the very real one about which poets write poetry, and directors make films. A young girl, having read and seen enough stories about love, is ready for it internally, and it is not surprising that she takes any object she likes for love. Unaware that in addition to this loud concept, there are also: friendship, sympathy, affection and love. And these are all far from synonyms, but various complex psychological combinations that are united by one thing - longing. In all these situations, a person yearns for his beloved, friend, friend.

In different dictionaries, this concept is defined in different ways. Some define this feeling as deep affection, others as sex drive. But the main thing in the concept of love is striving for another person, another person - the object of his love. Love is a community of two people, it is the unity of souls, the desire to live the life of another person, to give oneself to his interests, aspirations and desires. Love is a high and joyful feeling that has nothing to do with jealousy, anger, hatred.

Love rejoices in the success of another, desires good and does not demand anything in return. It is unselfishness that distinguishes this feeling from others. And when love is mutual, then this is a real gift from God, because only mutual striving for each other can achieve unity.

They met for a whole year in the 11th grade. Fate drove them to different cities. For a whole year they talked on Skype, went to each other, corresponded, called back. She found life unbearable without him. She was happy only with him. All her friends understood that she had true love and were jealous of her. She cried, missed, missed and wanted only one thing, that he was always there. She reproached him for his inaction and was offended by fate that she had separated them. And a year later, on a typical day, a male voice on her phone told him not to call again. She met her new love.

Could it be that a girl is so lucky in life, she has not yet stopped loving one guy, she could love again? Of course not. It was just that the girl took a different feeling for love.

In our story, one important detail indicates the lack of love: the girl demanded from the guy to be near, failure to comply with this requirement led to insults and reproaches. And love cannot demand anything for itself, because a given feeling is always a bestowal.

And what was it?

Affection, what is it?

The family almost broke up because of the man's romance. For a long time he worked in another city as a "watch", and one day his wife found out that there was another woman. The wise loving wife did not throw up scandals, but presenting evidence to her husband, she said: "Do you love? ... Go, let me go!" And she gave me time to think. Needless to say, how much the man changed his mind during this time. He understood that he needed to choose one woman and lose another forever. But it was about love. He broke up with a new girlfriend, because he realized that having lost her, he would feel melancholy, and having lost a spouse, pain. He explained to her: “I realized that I would miss our meetings nothing more and I realized that I do not love you. I'm just attached to you. I can survive this. " A young friend would throw tantrums, break the phone, and reproach. And the wife said that if he understood everything and made a decision, she would forgive him.

Of course, this story can be looked at in different ways: to put the argument of family life and a sense of duty, the wisdom of one woman against the stupidity of another. But the most important thing here is choice. The fateful decision was made by a man. It was he who had to understand which woman he needed more, which of the two he really loves. It should be assumed that torment tormented him for more than one night. It was possible to understand your life only by choosing a loved one. And he reasoned correctly, taking as a basis the feeling of the loss of a woman. By juxtaposing pain and longing.

Where does the pain come from? Precisely from the rupture of souls. Love is unity and after a breakup, you get the feeling of losing not SOMEONE, but a part of yourself. It has already been said about giving, and having lost a part of oneself, given to another, it becomes unbearably painful. The pain is akin to a lost body part. Only the soul hurts. And mental pain is stronger than physical pain.

How do you distinguish attachment from love?

Many psychologists and philosophers have puzzled over this question. Vladimir Levy offers the following formula:

"Love is measured by the measure of forgiveness, affection - by the pain of parting ..."

That's how simple he separates the two concepts. If it hurts unbearably when parting, if melancholy squeezes from the inside and you want to be around, these are only symptoms of attachment. Of course, longing for a loved one accompanies love, but this is not the main thing. It is important to understand that you can forgive him: all or nothing ... Forgiveness is the measure of love. Forgive, as a mother forgives her children everything. Because she loves, and therefore unselfishly aspires to her child, wishing him happiness in life, not being jealous, not demanding the return of love. Does the mother miss being apart? Of course, he misses, but he will never ruin the life of his child because of this longing.

There is one more moment in motherly love. The mother loves the child as he is, bringing up, upset, rejoicing. But not one mother will exchange her child for a more beautiful, intelligent, successful one.

In the story about another woman, not only a man showed his love, but also his wife, who was ready to let go or forgive, giving her husband the right to build her life, and readily accepted his decision. As for the man's mistake ... So in the same is the phenomenon of love, to accept a person as he is: with mistakes and shortcomings.

So, to summarize:

Friendship of a man and a woman - myth or reality?

The psychology of friendship between a man and a woman is the most mysterious question, for many years psychologists have been trying to determine whether such a friendship exists. Let's take a closer look at the features of heterosexual friendship, how to establish such friendly relations and save them? Why do friendly feelings arise between a man and a woman, which contributes to their creation?

Features of friendship between a man and a woman

Friendship of a man and a woman causes conflicting opinions, some people believe in its possibility, others do not, and girls are more inclined to such a relationship, and the guys understand that it is difficult to maintain such a friendship, the emergence of love is likely.

After carefully reviewing it, we decided to offer it to your attention. Read more ..

Why do girls like to be friends with guys, what are the benefits of such communication?

Consequently, for girls and women, friendly relations with the opposite sex carry a lot of positive things, while it is worth being confident in choosing friends and being careful in choosing a company.

What are the reasons for friendship between guys and girls?

1. In adolescence, the influence of hormonal levels increases, interest in the opposite sex, unconscious attraction appears.
2. Girls are empathetic, can understand, show attention, care.
3. It is pleasant to be in the company of girls, men like to feel the attention of women, support, positive assessments.
4. Desire to impress the opposite sex.
5. The desire to know the girls, the peculiarities of their behavior, thoughts, the desire to receive friendly advice from them.

Usually, guys prefer male companies for friendship, but during adolescence, more often female and male groups intersect, mixed ones are formed. There is more and more interest in each other. At this stage, friendship is more of a preparation for love.

Are there any friendly feelings without intimate coloring? The psychology of friendship between a man and a woman endows such a friendship with a special status - it is not just friendship and not love, but rather an average. When people just make friends, communicate, there is a feeling who it is - a girl or a man, which causes special feelings. We are opposite in our inner essence, like fire and water, earth and sky, it is the differences that cause a strong attraction between men and women.

Psychology of love, love - friendship, how to distinguish friendship from falling in love? - a question that haunts many young people. Communication can be enjoyable, but where is the line symbolizing falling in love?

Let's try to identify the main differences:

6. love arises like a flash of lightning, an opening, a sudden feeling, and friendly attitude- the result of long communication, a series of meetings, joint activities;
7. love does not have special levels, it exists as a given, it is hard not to notice, friendly affection has different levels - weak, strong, there may be acquaintances or real friends;
8. love- this is passion, and therefore suffering, presupposes ecstasy and high joy from meetings, but also the torment of parting and experiences. Friendly feelings not associated with experiences, rather aimed at the joy of communication;
9. love can be one-sided without an answer, but friendly interaction usually a mutual process - communication, mutual sympathy, the desire to help in difficult situations;
10. love prone to idealization, a person is real and at the same time becomes special, the best in the world, in friendship we really evaluate a friend, we see objectively;
11. in friendship it is important to feel the understanding of a friend and to feel the similarity of views, in love a person is constantly looking for answers - is there reciprocity or not, whether they love me;
12. friendship fair and demanding to a lesser extent, love- this is insanity, constant anxiety, thoughts, even finding reciprocity, a person often feels ups and downs of joy and downsides of mood in moments of separation, experiences.

The psychology of friendship between a man and a woman makes it possible to understand that friendly feelings are more humane, tuned in to the mutual joy of communication, and are useful for both men and women, but we remember about nature. If you want to maintain friendship and not go to the stage of love, you should adhere to the recommendations of psychologists:

13. Periodically remind you that you are just friends.
14. Do not use flirting in communication, transparent hints of a close relationship.
15. Do not play with a person in the family - joint purchases, repairs and other similar matters.
16. Trying to keep your distance, too active communication can turn on other mechanisms.
17. Report that you are not looking for love, or - a place in the heart is taken.

The psychology of friendship between a man and a woman determines: such friendly feelings arise as a result of joint activities - common work, team, hobbies, pursuits of interests. You can go to courses, learn foreign languages, play sports together. Companionship of different sexes has its advantages and disadvantages. The main question is: how do people perceive these relationships, what do they invest in them, see each other as friends, or hope for more?

The modern world has become more pragmatic, not everyone needs real feelings, there are young people who are just interested in a partner for a relationship. The expression "friendship sex" also appeared. What does this mean and is such interaction possible without a feeling of love? Initially, friendly communication excludes intimacy, and its presence indicates greater intimacy. How should this trend be perceived?

There are 3 options for the development of events:

1. casual sex with a friend- booze, party, got carried away and here's the result. What to do next? Forget and remain friends or become a couple, move to the next level of close communication;
2. friendship for sex- this is a search for a temporary partner to enjoy life, people often feel uncomfortable alone, and this is a simplified version of meetings without obligations;
3. friendship + sex- friendly feelings are at the heart of the relationship, however, there is also a conscious desire to receive physical relaxation, the rules of the game are established - no obligations, dating continues until the moment of meeting true love, according to observations, it can last up to 10 meetings, then falling in love occurs or one of the partners leaves for to another person.

Of course, such relationships seem cynical or vulgar, less sublime than love, but they take place in the modern world, while "sex for friendship" is a big risk - it is difficult to meet a real friend, and close intimate communication can ruin a wonderful friendship. It all depends on people, moral principles, life values, priorities.

Friendship between a man and a woman is a reality

Psychologists have established that friendship between a man and a woman exists, which is also confirmed by social polls among the population - 61% of respondents believe in heterosexual friendship, 31% do not. However, the line is rather shaky and friendly communication is possible under certain circumstances:

• friends have partners, lovers;
• there is no intimate interest, there has already been a romance, there are friendly feelings;
• there is a mutual desire to maintain communication at the level of friendship;
• friendly communication with married couples.

How to perceive when there is friendship between a man and a married woman or a girl with a married man? Of course, not all spouses approve of friends of the opposite sex for fear of losing loved ones. The crux of the matter goes deeper - when a close friend, other than a spouse, appears, there is a high probability that there is no spiritual closeness and understanding in the family, which creates the basis for friendly relations.

A friend compensates for the lack of communication, mutual understanding, playing the role of a close-minded, dear person. Such attachments often arise on the basis of common interests - music, literature, foreign languages. People are united by common views on life, values, worldview.

It is worth remembering: if a person is sociable and wants to communicate with a large circle of friends, this is normal, but a close friend is an alarming sign for a couple. Such interaction, in the event of difficulties with a loved one, can become an order of magnitude closer. Often there is sympathy between friends, but they try to keep their distance, keeping the boundaries of independence from feelings.

The psychology of friendship between men and women pays special attention to the issue of friendship transformation. Love after friendship is a fairly common scenario. Friendly feelings imply trust, respect, and mutual assistance. The stage of friendship can be a preparation for love, it serves as an excellent foundation for establishing strong family relationships. Indeed, to create a lasting union, you need friendship, love, passion, respect, understanding. A close friend can know a person quite well and understand perfectly. Often, close friends can be a wonderful couple, but they are afraid to upset the existing balance.

As you can see, love after friendship is quite possible and develops perfectly on the basis of friendly feelings, the main thing is that it is mutual and desirable, then the probability of a successful development of events is high.

Benefits of Love After Friendship:

• lovers never get bored, have a great time together, have common interests;
• the partner knows the secrets, perfectly feels and understands the loved one;
• the beloved is already familiar to friends and family, so those around them perfectly perceive the newly created couple, usually support and rejoice;
• the beloved knows the positive and negative sides of the partner, calmly refers to the shortcomings;
• a person perceives a partner naturally, there is no need to embellish himself externally or ascribe special qualities;
• such couples easily find a common language, have an excellent level of mutual understanding.

Negative points:

• if the connection is broken, there is a high probability of losing a friend; it will be extremely difficult to return to the previous level;
• a person knows everything too much, it is impossible to hide something.

So, friendly relations can perfectly develop to the level of love and bring happiness to lovers, unite hearts, create families.

But the maintenance of friendly feelings after love is rather a myth, because it is difficult for a person to lose love, he prefers to hate or not see, than to be friends, to suffer. Meetings with a former love bring pain and smell of bitterness, it is better to minimize them. Someone will definitely continue to love and experience torment.

But small novels can eventually descend to the level of friendly feelings, people continue to communicate calmly, it all depends on the degree of immersion in a person, was there true love or just passion?

The psychology of friendship between a man and a woman is a rather complex and controversial topic, there are many options for relationships, and friendly feelings can be the beginning and put the development of further love or the end of other hobbies. The main thing is that heterosexual friendship exists if there is a mutual desire to maintain and maintain its fragile balance. And mutual communication, respect, help allows people to develop morally, to better understand the representatives of the opposite sex.

Friendly feelings are even more common than love, they are more disinterested, do not put forward constant demands, give more freedom and trust to friends.

Each independently determines the name of the relationship in which he is and sets the rules of the game.

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Friendship is an ethical form of love. Unlike other forms of love, she

The psychology of friendship has been associated with socio-psychological

The psychology of attraction covers:

1.the needs of the subject, prompting him to choose one or another

In modern psychology, empathy is usually interpreted as either

1) understanding the feelings, needs of another;

The concept of friendship and its meaning.

First of all, the word "friendship" has not one, but several different

The fourth meaning: sympathy and friendliness. We finally come to that

Friendship can be divided into three types according to age categories: children,

Youth is the period of the most intense and emotional communication with

In adolescence, friendship, as we have seen, is privileged, even

Spiritual friendship- mutual enrichment and complementarity of each other. Each

The unwritten rules of friendship:

Women are practical and pragmatic creatures. From a social point of view, it may not always look beautiful, because such far-fetched principles as loyalty and devotion do not exist for women in general. But from the point of view of psychology, such sobriety is only admirable. Men should learn this from women.

Women's friendship is always in the nature of a temporary union. As two independent states, respecting, above all, their own interests. Sometimes it is helpful to have an ally. But do kings and presidents swear eternal loyalty? No, the union exists exactly as long as it is beneficial.

Likewise, women - while it is convenient and profitable to be friends, they are the best friends. But as soon as the interests intersect, the friendship ends. In words, slogans about loyalty may sound, but in practice a woman will do exactly what suits her, and she will simply find an excuse for herself that the case is exceptional, and she could not help herself.

And that's really good. Because a woman deceives herself and others only in words, and in her actions she is always more or less honest with herself. But men for the sake of friendship and this oath can derail their whole lives, and there is nothing to be proud of.

The main stumbling block in female friendship is men. This is where friendship ends and the law of the jungle comes to the fore - every man for himself. And if it so happened that interests in relation to a man intersected, the union is over.

Yes, sometimes, women's friendship lasts a lifetime, but this only says that these women had nothing to compete with each other. And if one of them abandoned the man, for the sake of the other, then this most likely means that it didn’t hurt and I wanted to.

So how do women align? As long as friendship between women lasts, it is quite similar to a man's - the same mutual assistance in business and the same mutual assistance in overcoming mental difficulties.

It is not considered something shameful for women to cry on each other's shoulder and feel sorry for each other in the most direct form. And this is again a reason to admire the female directness in expressing her feelings. It is this emotional support that keeps women together. Help in practical matters is much less important to them.

Therefore, when a woman finds herself a man who is ready to wipe her tears, all the best friends fade into the background - they are no longer needed. A man both comforts and solves the everyday problems of a woman, so why should she be friends with someone else?

Men are friends in a slightly different way. Friendships are based on the same emotional mutual assistance that women have, but the principles of male honor and devotion are added to it.

It must be said here that honor and devotion are the same virtual concepts as love and friendship. In the same way, they do not make any sense. This is just a set of rules that is instilled in men from childhood and becomes sacred to them.

In fact, belief in honor and decency is a form of neuroticism, which, however, is elevated to the rank of the highest male value. Hence, the specificity of male friendship - following the rules of honor, often turns out to be more important for a man than all other interests.

Only a man can “suffer for an idea” - revolutionaries, Decembrists, patriots, seekers of truth and other people of honor - they all put their mental ideals above even their own survival. Darwin would not approve of them.

In practice, men often go against their personal interests for the sake of friendship. This is bad because, usually, such self-denials occur unconsciously, albeit consciously. That is, a man realizes that he is giving up his desire for the sake of friendship, but he does not see that the desire does not disappear, but is only suppressed, goes into the unconscious and continues to grind deeply from within. Any struggle "for an idea" is self-destructive, but men do not see it.

On the other hand, the willingness and ability to compromise their interests makes possible real cooperation in solving practical issues. Women cannot cooperate - they are always in competition, but men can really work effectively on a common goal hand in hand. And if a man is clearly aware of what interests and for what he refuses, then there is no longer any self-destruction here - everything is fine.

But the basis of male friendship is still not cooperation and mutual assistance, but the same need for consolation as women. Men are friends for exactly the same thing - so that there is someone to cry their tears for.

Yes, men do not cry - they drink bitter and, while eating, share their problems. A man should be harsh and he is not supposed to cry, but the essence of this does not change. Over beer, barbecues, fishing, in the gym - everywhere men complain to each other about their lives and comfort each other like a man.

The warmest relationships between men arise when the level of mutual trust allows you to share the most intimate experiences. That is, in other words, when you can pour out the deepest and most painful experiences to each other.

A best friend, a true friend is, usually, the one to whom you can lay out all your hard thoughts, who will listen to everything, understand and sympathize, who will not use the information received and then stab in the back (women, by the way, always use and, if it is necessary - they beat from the full swing).

In this, male and female friendships are similar - both are looking for consolation in friends and want to have a person next to them on whom they can dump all their problems. Women do it in their own spontaneous manner - directly, simply and openly. Men pretend to be unapproachable stern macho, but this makes them look even funnier.

All friendship - both male and female - is built on the principle: "I help you deceive yourself, and you help me to deceive myself." Ostriches helping each other shove their heads in the sand are best friends. And where we are not talking about consolation and self-deception, it all comes down to bargaining - "I help you out, and then you will help me out."

Friendship between man and woman

Finally, about interesting things. The topic of friendship between a man and a woman becomes a battlefield with enviable regularity.

All the confusion arises from the use of words that have no clear definitions. Friendship, passion, falling in love, love - where does one end and another begin? Nobody knows this and cannot know because of the conditional nature of these concepts. Only one thing can be said for sure - a relationship is possible between a man and a woman.

When these relationships are built on mutual consolation, there arises "pure and bright love" sung by the poets with sex, family, which is the same neuroticism as "true friendship".

When only one is comforted in a relationship, it turns out a kind of asexual friendship. The role of the consoled person is often a man, and that is why there are no intimate relationships in such relationships. A weak man is simply not interesting to a woman.

On the other hand, when a psychologically adult man and a woman meet who do not need mutual comfort, then a strange relationship arises between them, for which it is very difficult to find any definition.

It can be pure passion, when two bodies simply enjoy each other, or spiritual and spiritual closeness, when the connection arises on the basis of the unity of the world view. And when one is combined with the other, then a fairy tale generally begins - the very relationship in which a man and a woman become companions, fellow travelers, like-minded people in the best sense of these words.

I have a friend, I love - so I exist.

What is friendship from the point of view of psychology? All its everyday definitions are the essence of metaphors, each of which highlights one aspect of the problem. "Friend - comrade" implies the existence of joint activities and common interests. "Friend - mirror" emphasizes the function of self-knowledge, and in this case the partner is assigned the passive role of reflection; "Compassionate Friend" represents emotional empathy. "Interlocutor friend" highlights the communicative side of friendship, self-disclosure and mutual understanding. “Friend -“ alter ego ”means both assimilation, assimilation of another to himself, and identification, assimilation of oneself to another, self-dissolution in another.

Each of these metaphors is valid in its own way. But do they denote different types of friendship, or different components, or different stages in the development of the same relationship? Real progress in the study of the psychology of friendship begins not with clarifying definitions, but with differentiating issues.

Founded at the end of the 19th century. the psychology of friendship, like other sciences about man, initially (and up to the middle of the 20th century) raised questions of a general nature: what is the source of friendship, how are its rational and emotional components correlated, and how is the relationship that once emerged supported? Researchers of this period have collected a large empirical material on how different people - mainly children and adolescents understand friendship and choose friends. But the interpretation of the data for the most part did not go beyond the notions of everyday consciousness and was not linked to any special psychological theories.

The analytical period of the psychology of friendship, which began in the late 1950s, was associated with the socio-psychological research of interpersonal attraction. The word "attraction" (attraction), like the ancient Greek "philia", literally means attraction, attraction. In social psychology, the concept of "interpersonal attraction" is defined as a cognitive (cognitive) component of an emotional relationship to another person, or as a certain social attitude, or, finally, as an emotional component of interpersonal perception (social perception).

The main question of the psychology of attraction: "What attracts people to each other?" - is meaningfully ambiguous. It also covers the needs of the subject, prompting him to choose one or another partner; and properties of the object (partner), stimulating interest or sympathy for him; and features of the interaction process that favor the emergence and development of dyadic (pair) relationships; and the objective conditions of such interaction (for example, belonging to a common social circle). This ambiguity of the problem led to the thematic diversity of psychological studies of attraction. Of the 403 empirical studies of her, published in 1972-1976. in American scientific journals, 147.5 were devoted to the formation of impressions of people about each other, 128.5 - to the processes of verbal and behavioral interaction, meetings and contacts, only 127 more or less long-term friendships (33) or love (94) relationships.

The theory of attraction itself was just as varied. Some of them described mainly its intraindividual, internal preconditions, others - the mechanisms of communication, the third - the stages of its development, the fourth - the final results. Depending on the initial theoretical and methodological attitudes of the authors, friendship was considered either as a peculiar form of exchange, or as satisfaction of emotional needs, or as an informational process of mutual cognition, or as social interaction of individuals, or as a unique and inimitable dialogue between individuals.

The simplest, behavioral model of attraction, characteristic of non-behaviorism (D. Homans, D. Thibault, and G. Kelly), considers the exchange of rewards (positive reinforcement) and costs (negative reinforcement) to be the most important condition for any pair interaction. In order for personal relationships to develop and maintain, according to the theorists of non-behaviorism, partners should receive from each other and from the very process of interaction maximum rewards and minimum costs. Experiments staged in accordance with this theoretical orientation try to weigh, first of all, the objective consequences, “outcomes” of the process of friendly interaction: do partners manage to get the desired “reward” in the form of pleasure, “relaxation of tension”, practical benefits, etc. More complex models, for example, J. Clore and D. Byrne, A. and B. Lott, analyze not only "outcomes", but also the types of stimuli - the ratio of such factors of friendship as the similarity of personal traits, the proximity of social attitudes and character. emotional interaction of partners. However, their common methodological basis remains the theory of learning.

To explain such a complex phenomenon as friendship, this approach cannot be considered satisfactory - it is too elementary. Its prototype is a business partnership, in which a partner acts as a means of satisfying egoistic needs, a subject, and neither depth, nor intimacy, nor moral obligations to each other are assumed. And the very "exchange" is considered at the level of individual, isolated needs and desires of the individual, without taking into account their place in the life world of an integral personality. This is a kind of psychological equivalent of the old philosophical theory of "reasonable egoism."

Although "exchange" - activities, motives, values, etc. - is objectively present in any interpersonal relationship, in more flexible theories of friendship it appears as a private, subordinate element.

Psychodynamic theory, presented, in particular, by psychoanalysis, sees the origins of friendship, like all other attachments, in the unconscious emotional needs of the individual. The founder of psychoanalysis S. Freud believed that all human drives and attachments, be it friendship, parental love or devotion to an idea, are ultimately instinctive in nature, being forms of sexual attraction, libido, which he, however, defined very broadly.

The authors of later psychoanalytic theories of motivation, developed within the framework of neo-Freudian concepts, recognize the existence. a person has special interpersonal, communication needs. For example, the American psychologist W. Schutz, the author of the model of "fundamental orientation of interpersonal relations", claims that a person has a certain ratio of three interpersonal needs: belonging, (affiliation), control and love. The level of each of these needs is laid down in early childhood, predetermining the future communicative properties and real communication of an adult. The decisive role of "significant, others" in the formation of personality is emphasized by the founder of the "interpersonal theory of psychiatry" H. S. Sullivan.

In general, the psychodynamic theory of attraction is better suited for describing unaccountable and uncontrollable attachments than for freely created friendships. In psychoanalytic concepts, a friend is most often assigned the role of a mirror onto which the subject projects his own unconscious features, or an ideal role model, identification. In addition, this concept tends to absolutize the "traumatic" consequences of negative childhood experiences, leaving in the shadow the processes and mechanisms of interpersonal relationships in adults.

If the behavioral approach captures the “molecular” processes of interpersonal interaction, and the psychodynamic approach captures intrapersonal needs, then cognitive psychology analyzes the informational and procedural aspects of communication, trying to answer the question of how exactly interpersonal communication occurs. Representatives of this trend (F. Haider, T. Newcome, E. Walster, Z. Rubin, etc.) primarily investigate the cognitive and symbolic aspects of human relationships: social attitudes, value orientations, signs, meanings, etc.

Unlike “naive” psychology, which tried to deduce attraction, the attraction of certain people to each other directly from their objective similarities or differences, cognitive psychology emphasizes the importance of attribution processes.

According to her theorists, in friendship, it is not so much the actual coincidence or non-coincidence of individual traits that is important, but their perception, what qualities friends attribute to one another and what is the tendency of such attribution (we tend to see only good in friends, and only bad in enemies). The "exchange of reinforcements", which non-behaviorists interpret naively-mechanistically, in the light of the cognitive "theory of justice" appears to be a more complex psychological process: the desire to get maximum satisfaction from communication is usually measured by the individual with his ideas about fair exchange, and this prompts him to take care not only of his own benefit, but also about the interests of the partner.

Cognitive psychology laid the foundation for the systematic study of the "language of friendship" - terms in which people comprehend and describe their relationships and ideas about each other, as well as "personal constructs" (D. Kelly, S. Duck, etc.) - specific oppositions opposite concepts used by the subject to categorize himself or other people. From these concepts, his implicit (tacitly implied) theory of personality is formed. For example, the categorization of others along the axis "people of purpose" - "people of emotions" reflects the individual's idea of ​​antagonism, purposefulness and emotionality and is apparently determined by the specifics of his personal life experience. Knowledge of the "repertoire positions" of an individual, the structure of social roles that are significant for him and their subjective meaning allows the psychologist to look into his inner world and his intimate environment. Interpersonal competence is also important for the psychology of friendship - the individual's mastering of the necessary communication skills, the ability to make acquaintances, open up and understand others.

Symbolic interactionism (D. Mead, D. McCall, etc.) highlights the social-structural (role) and cultural-symbolic (meaning) aspects of personal relationships in connection with the development of self-awareness. Since a person is formed and realizes himself only in interaction with other people, adherents of this trend see the goal of studying friendship in deciphering the psychological content of this process - understanding why the given Self is attached to this Other. Interpersonal attraction, as defined by McCall, differs from formal or business relationships in that it contains a self that desires, on the basis of its positive attachment to the Other, to establish personal mutually active relationships with him.

Interactionists operate with categories such as. acceptance of the role of another, role behavior, determination of the situation and I. Acceptance of a role presupposes the ability to put oneself in the place of another person, imagining the requirements of his social position, his feelings and the meaning that this role and behavior has for him. Playing a role implies mastering a system of rules, on the observance of which the effectiveness and appropriateness of the corresponding actions, gestures, etc. depend, and determining the situation implies the coordination of one's own intentions and goals with the intentions and goals of other participants in the interaction. This is possible only if there is a stable system of self-esteem and at the same time the ability to look at oneself through the eyes of others. Such an approach makes sense in relation to the description of such phenomena as the development of interpersonal competence, the dependence of the individual's personal relationships on his position and popularity in the group, the relationship of friendship with the level of development of self-awareness.

Although according to their initial premises, all of the listed approaches to understanding the psychological aspects of interpersonal interaction are different, and in some ways even opposite, at the same time they are complementary, each of them has a certain rational grain. Any individual act of interpersonal interaction and this entire process as a whole can be considered both as a behavioral process of rapprochement and correlation of two subjects independent from each other, and as cognition of one subject by another, and as the satisfaction of some internal emotional need of the subject, and as a process of symbolic interaction, during which individuals do not just exchange information, but assimilate the points of view and life prospects of each other, thereby expanding the boundaries of their own selves.

At the same time, a more complex theoretical model potentially includes elementary ones as its aspects or special cases. So, the model of communication as the interaction of self-conscious I and You includes the processes of their mutual cognition (since self-awareness presupposes self-knowledge, and the assimilation of the life perspective of another is impossible without understanding his role and position) and satisfaction of emotional needs (since the “image of I” also encompasses emotional-evaluative components ). The cognitive model, in turn, presupposes the presence of elementary processes of exchange and reinforcement described by the behavioristic scheme, etc.

However, despite the interesting partial results, the most important and unexpected conclusion of the psychology of attraction was the proof of the absence of factors that rigidly determine the level of attraction. Its causes are effective only under a certain range of conditions and in combination with other variables. Being objectively conditioned, human communication, including such a form as friendship, is determined at the same time by the will of its participants, their desire, what style of behavior they choose, and other unpredictable features that depend only on them.

In the early 1980s, it became clear to psychologists that the study of individual attitudes and needs makes it difficult to discern the integrity of the individual's life world, and the reduction of personal relationships to a series of "interactions" obscures their deep personal meaning. Laboratory methods are more suitable for the analysis of static, non-developing one-time encounters with strangers than natural, life relationships. In laboratory studies, it is almost impossible to take into account the development of personal relationships over time, as well as the active efforts and needs of their participants. Friendly relations and their "levels" were conceived not as living, dynamic, changeable, subjectively meaningful processes, but as stable "states".

The new scientific-theoretical paradigm, which replaced the theory of interpersonal attraction, considers friendship as a special type of personal relationship. What are its features?

1. The range of phenomena covered by the concept of "personal relations" is much narrower and more definite than the phenomena of "interpersonal attraction". We are not talking about casual short-term contacts, but only about relatively stable, developing relationships.

2. Unlike functional-role relationships, personal relationships are individual, personalized, in the course of their formation and development, a new subjective, personal meaning is formed, enriching both participants, which does not happen with a simple informational or behavioral exchange.

3. Personal relationships must be studied in a natural environment, taking into account the time factor, and not only in the ascending (acquaintance, deepening, maintenance), but also in the descending (deterioration, weakening, breakdown of relationships) stages of development.

4. Since we are talking about subject-subject relations, their development does not take shape automatically, in accordance with universal norms, but depending on the conscious efforts and communicative strategy of partners.

5. Behind the illusion of a stable state and a smooth transition from one stage of relations to another, there is a dramatic process of change, uncertainty, negotiations, attributions, etc.

6. The meaning and meaning of these processes are often not realized, and their consequences are interpreted in different ways by the participants in the relationship. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between their objective determination, subjective motivation and retrospective legitimation (explanation and justification).

The psychology of personal relationships as a special direction of scientific research was first given concrete form and consolidation in the five-volume work of the same name, created with the participation of Soviet psychologists and published under the editorship of S. Duck and R. Gilmour. In addition, since 1984 a special interdisciplinary journal "Journal of Social and Personal Relationships" has been published under the editorship of the same Duck, and in 1985 the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships was organized.

In philosophical and methodological terms, the approaches of this direction are close, on the one hand, to the ideas of "humanistic psychology" that has developed in the West, and, on the other hand, to the "dialogical" understanding of communication, developed on the basis of the ideas of M. M. Bakhtin, L. S. Vygotsky and A.A. Ukhtomsky by Soviet philosophers V.S.Bibler and M.S. Kagan, psychologists A.N. Leontyev, A.V. and V.A. and others. Is it possible, however, to transfer such a complex problem to the mainstream of empirical scientific research and what do we actually know about the objective prerequisites of friendship, its implied rules, stages of development and psychological mechanisms?

As for the objective prerequisites, then, like all other personal relationships, friendship largely depends on the system of social ties, the circle of direct communication of the individual, due to territorial proximity, social group affiliation - and joint activities. However, the psychological significance of these factors is not the same.

The American social psychologist T. Newcomb, as an experiment, put the first-year students at the University of Michigan into rooms in different combinations according to the principle of similarity or dissimilarity of attitudes, and then studied the dynamics of their relationships. It turned out that in the early stages of acquaintance, attraction depends more on spatial proximity than on the similarity of attitudes, but later the situation changes and the similarity of attitudes outweighs the influence of proximity.

The influence of spatial proximity on personal relationships in most cases is mediated and supplemented by the other factors named group belonging and joint activities associated with a certain division of functions, cooperation and mutual assistance. Like ordinary consciousness, scientific psychology distinguishes between business, functional relationships and personal, individual attachments, as well as camaraderie due to belonging to the same team and friendship based on individual choice and personal sympathy.

Business relations, or, as some Soviet scientists call them after A.S. Makarenko, relations of responsible dependence, are subordinate to the achievement of some kind of non-individual goal - production, educational, etc. They are always specialized, and the person participates in them as an executor of a certain social function, role. Belonging to a given collective and the resulting feeling of solidarity with its other members (partnership) do not necessarily imply personal sympathy for each of them individually, without which friendship is unthinkable. "The question of the attitude of a comrade to a comrade," wrote Makarenko, "is not a question of friendship, not a question of love, not a question of neighborhood, but a question of responsible dependence."

However, the distinction between friendship and camaraderie is relative. Close cooperation and mutual assistance in joint activities easily and imperceptibly grow into mutual sympathy. The collective is united not only by the common interest of its members in the results of their joint activities, but also by the feeling of group solidarity, belonging to the whole. The degree of emotional identification of individuals with a group is one of the main indicators of team cohesion. And identification with the team is impossible without mutual support and care for individual comrades. "Sense of fellowship" is the most important common component of camaraderie and friendship. Therefore, companionship is not just a background, but a living breeding ground for the emergence and development of individualized friendships.

It is not for nothing that people acquire most of their friends precisely in the process of joint activity, in their production or educational collectives, and the importance of this type of community significantly outweighs the role of territorial and everyday factors. This is evidenced, in particular, by the data of the already mentioned studies by L.A. Gordon and E.V. Klopov.

The importance of joint activities and collective belonging for the emergence of friendship is also proved by social and psychological experiments. Known, for example, is the experiment of the American social psychologist M. Sheriff.

A group of 11-12-year-old boys, taken from different schools and having never met each other before, was taken to a country camp. For three days, teenagers had the opportunity to communicate completely freely with each other, they developed some kind of affection, groups, game companies, etc. After a certain personal relationship was established between the guys, a sociometric test was carried out, during which each named their best friends. Then the guys were divided into two teams so that two-thirds of each of the best friends were on the opposite team. Each team received its own task, communication between members of different teams was minimized, and the teams themselves were placed in a relationship of competition and rivalry. A few days later, the boys were again asked to name their best friends, emphasizing that they can choose, but only from their own team, but also from another. This time, the choice was completely different. Team membership decisively outweighed the initial personal sympathies: the number of "best friends" from their own team was in one case 95%, in the other - 88%.

The experiment shows that individual preference completely determines the choice of friends where there are no established collectives and - groups. But if an individual is already part of a group that has its own goals, a certain distribution of roles, etc., this also leaves an imprint on his personal preferences. As a rule, he chooses friends from among those people with whom he communicates more often in daily activities and with whom he is associated with a sense of group solidarity.

Of course, real life is more complicated than an experimental situation. Each person simultaneously belongs not to one, but to several different collectives (production, socio-political, family and household) and has a number of reference groups with which he conforms his behavior. Meanwhile, the number of close friends is limited. Hence - the problem of individual choice, from which, in fact, the psychology of friendship begins, in contrast to the psychology of collective activity or the psychology of communication.

Like all strongly human relationships, friendship is governed by a certain system of rules. The code of ancient institutionalized friendship was, as we have seen, quite clear-cut. Today, the rules of friendship are mostly tacitly implied. Nevertheless, their observance is very important for maintaining and appreciating the depth of friendships. What are these rules?

British psychologists M. Lrgapl and M. Henderson, through a series of surveys, established which of 43 supposed general rules of conduct are considered the most important for friendship among Englishmen, Italians, Japanese and Hong Kong residents (men and women aged 18 to 25 and from 30 to 60 years). The scholars then compared successful, ongoing friendships with those who had broken up, as well as friendships that were rated high or low by their members, based on criteria for compliance or violation of these rules. And finally, we checked what rules violation most often leads to a breakdown of friendship or is perceived as a reason for its termination.

In doing so, the researchers proceeded from the following hypotheses.

Like all relationships, friendship involves a set of informal rules. These rules allow friends. maintain a certain level of one or another positive reinforcement, and also avoid jealousy of third parties.

There are rules to ensure secrecy and respect for the individuality of another.

For all the intercultural differences, different cultures share a similar informal code of friendship.

The rules of mutual reward differentiate close intimate friendships from less intimate ones.

The rules for female friendships place more emphasis on self-disclosure and emotional support than similar rules for male friendships.

In the friendship of young people, helping and spending time together is more important than in the friendship of older people.

When friendships break, people are more likely to attribute the breaking of rules to others than to themselves.

In breaking friendships, breaking rules that provide positive reinforcement are less cited than breaking rules governing conflict situations, such as cheating trust or invading privacy.

Violation of certain rules is perceived as a natural reason for the end of a friendship; for example, non-observance of the norms of trust and mutual respect leads to a deterioration in relations, and violation of the rules that prevent conflicts, such as the prohibition to invade a partner's inner world, leads to rupture.

In general, the hypotheses were confirmed. Of the 27 general rules of friendship, formulated on the basis of the first stage of the study, the most important were 13, which were divided into four groups: exchange, intimacy, attitude towards third parties, and mutual coordination.

Share news of your successes

Show emotional support

Volunteer to help in times of need

Try to make your friend feel good in your company

Return debts and services rendered

Confidence in and trust in another

Relationship to third parties

Protect a friend in his absence

Be tolerant of the rest of his friends *

Don't criticize a friend in public **

Keep confidential secrets **

Do not be jealous or criticize other personal relationships **

Do not be annoying, do not preach *

Respect a friend's inner peace and autonomy **

The most important are six rules not marked with asterisks, since they meet all four criteria: are unanimously recognized as important for friendship; distinguish between ongoing friendship from broken up and highly valued relationships from low valued ones; Failure to comply with these rules is considered a likely and valid reason to end the friendship.

The rules marked with one asterisk meet three criteria, but do not distinguish close friends from less intimate ones. In other words, they are important for normal levels of friendship, but in especially close relationships they can be broken: close friends are not considered favors, they forgive intolerance towards mutual acquaintances and even some importunity.

The rules marked with two asterisks meet two criteria: they are considered important and breaking them can contribute to the end of the friendship, but the assessment of the depth of the friendship does not depend on them. These rules - avoiding public criticism, keeping a confidential secret, not being jealous of third parties and respecting the private world of another - are not specific to friendship, they apply in many other personal relationships and situations.

Studying the unwritten code of friendship is of great theoretical and practical importance. It is obvious that friendship presupposes the observance of all the basic rules of human society, which are also valid in less close communal, collective and personal relationships. However, the ratio, significance and hierarchy of these rules are not the same. With the deepening and individualization of friendly relations, the elementary general norms of "exchange" lose some of their significance, giving way to more complex and subtle rules of intimacy.

With all the differences between modern friendly relations and ancient institutionalized friendship, the concept of friendship is inherently inherent in the idea of ​​exclusivity, extraordinaryness, which allows for the possibility of violating and exceeding some of the more elementary, generally accepted norms and rules.

Friends are allowed a lot of things that would inevitably complicate and even spoil relations with less close people - neighbors, workmates, etc. But due to the weakening of the requirements for external norms of behavior and the equivalence of "exchange", the level of moral and psychological requirements rises sharply ... And since the most important specific rules of friendship - to share their experiences, provide moral support, voluntarily help in case of need, take care of a friend, trust him and be confident in him, protect a friend in his absence - are altruistic, their acceptance and observance presupposes a fairly high level moral consciousness of the individual, as well as the maturity of the most friendly relationship. It can be said differently: social psychology confirms that friendship is a moral attitude and cannot be otherwise.

But how do you practically choose your friends?

Even Plato and Aristotle asked the question: what makes one person attractive to another and, in particular, does he look for his own likeness or, on the contrary, complement in the other? Experimental psychological studies of friendship (late 19th-early 20th centuries) have also long been concentrated around this problem. From the point of view of everyday common sense, both opinions are equally plausible. Understanding a friend as a "other self" tacitly presupposes the principle of similarity: people who differ in essential characteristics are unlikely to be particularly close. However, the alter ego is not just a second, but a different self; friends are called not to duplicate, but to mutually enrich one another.

And since this is so, before discussing the question of the similarity or dissimilarity of friends, it is necessary to clarify a number of questions.

First, a class of implied similarities. Are we talking about the commonality of gender, age, social status, profession, education and other objective, non-psychological characteristics? Or about the community of value orientations, views, interests? Or about the similarity of characters, temperament, personality traits, etc.? These are completely different things.

Second, the degree of perceived similarity. Do you mean a complete coincidence of qualities or some more limited similarity?

Thirdly, the meaning and meaning of this similarity for the personality itself. The more important this quality is for a person, the higher the requirements that she probably makes in this regard to her friends. A person living a tense aesthetic life is unlikely to be able to make friends with someone who hates art. And for someone who sees only entertainment in art, the aesthetic tastes of his friends are perhaps insignificant.

Fourth, the volume, the breadth of the range of similarities. The similarity of friends can be limited to any one area, or it can cover several traits at once - both social characteristics, and value orientations, and personality traits.

In addition, it is necessary to clarify whether it is about attitudes and how people represent themselves and their friends, or about their real qualities.

Different people see themselves in friendship, as in other relationships, in different ways. Let's remind that for young F. Schiller friendship is “contemplation of oneself in the mirror of another soul”. R. Rolland, on the contrary, denied the desire for similarity: “Let others, like Narcissus, admire their reflection in the mirror! I am looking for eyes that tell me: "I am not you!" Then it's worth getting in! And if such a desire is mutual, two crossed swords lead to the highest fusion of two human beings. "

But self-perception is not always reliable. Numerous socio-psychological studies show that in the attitudes of people, in the demands they place on their friends, the orientation toward similarity (love of similarity, hemophilia) decisively prevails over the orientation toward complement (love of differences, heterophilia). The overwhelming majority of people prefer to be friends with people of their age, gender, social status, education, etc. Almost equally desirable is the coincidence or at least the similarity of the main value orientations, interests and character traits. But how does this attitude manifest itself in real behavior? Do friends really look more like each other than others, or does it just seem to them? In terms of objective characteristics (gender, age, social status, educational level), homogeneity really prevails. People in most cases are friends with representatives of their own "circle" - age, social, cultural. A somewhat smaller, but still significant degree of similarity is also observed in the social attitudes and value orientations of friends. Although there is no complete overlap here, friends tend to be more or less in common on issues that matter most to them.

This has not only and probably not so much subjective-attitudinal, psychological, as social reasons.

Most personal relationships develop in the process of long-term interaction, organized around some centers, centers of joint activity, and the circle of people involved in this activity is in many respects homogeneous. The more homogeneous the social circle, the more likely it is that the friendship couples and triads that form in it will turn out to be in many ways similar. For example, the age homogeneity of children's friendship follows not only and even not so much from the desire to be friends with peers, but from the objective conditions of choice, from the predominance of children of the same age in a given center of activity (for example, in a school class).

However, the relative homogeneity of the social circle from which friends are selected does not remove the problem of their individual psychological similarity and the question: is this similarity the result of the initial choice of partners similar to themselves or their mutual adaptation, adaptation to each other?

Although personality traits are varied and not always amenable to strict designation, when comparing the psychological traits of thirty friendly pairs of American high school students and students with the traits of a randomly selected thirty pairs, friends turned out to be significantly more similar than random couples. When comparing the levels of interpersonal understanding and self-awareness of several groups of children (from eight and a half to thirteen and a half years old) with similar indicators of their peers, whom the subjects called their friends, and this choice was in some cases mutual, and in others - one-sided, and children who did not figure among their friends, "mutual friends" were found to be more alike than "one-sided friends" and "non-friends"; such differences are especially great in older children.

The largest study of this genus compared the similarities and differences between friendly couples of 1,800 American high school students. They were asked to name their best friend, and then talk about their home conditions, relationships with parents, academic interests, leisure activities, social attitudes and psychological states. Comparison of friends' answers showed that they are very similar to each other in their socio-demographic properties (social origin, gender, race and age). Significant similarities are also observed in some aspects of behavior, especially if it deviates from the social norm and violates some prohibitions (for example, smoking), in educational interests and the degree of participation in peer group life. As for psychological traits (assessment of one's personal qualities and relationships with parents), here the similarities between friends are much less.

It should be borne in mind that our ideas about the degree of our similarity or difference with other people are far from always reliable. Those whom we prefer tend to seem to us more like ourselves than those whom we reject. Sociometric studies show that when trying to predict which of acquaintances or comrades will favor them and which will reject them, people usually (about 70% of the subjects) unconsciously assume reciprocity of choice. By giving preference to another person, choosing him as a game partner, travel companion, etc., we unwittingly expect that he, in turn, will choose us. On the contrary, we expect rejection and rejection from an antipathy person.

In fact, this reciprocity is less common than we think. It is especially easy to mistake the attribution of complex personality traits. Often, two lovers seem to themselves very similar to each other, but each ascribes his own qualities to the other, that is, both consider themselves similar, in essence they interpret the similarities differently. Friends, on the other hand, often exaggerate the degree of their mutual self-disclosure, etc.

"Interpenetration" or "intersection" of personal characteristics of friends is closely related to the duration and depth of their relationship. The stages or stages of the dyadic interaction of the Self and the Other are clearly conveyed by the scheme of the American psychologist J. Levinger.