On the three levels of friendship and understanding of social personality patterns according to friendship styles.
With social media at the core of modern virtual life, a friendship psychology simply cannot be avoided. But friendship may not be as simple as it seems, as it has several layers and complexities, and friendship can be of many types. However, friendship like love depends on the single attraction factor and in this case it is more of a mental and emotional attraction than a physical one. So when romantic love begins with physical attraction, friendship is more mental, emotional, or psychological.
Among perhaps thousands of students we meet in school or a few hundred we meet in the workplace, we eventually grow closer and achieve a level of friendship with very few people. So just like love, friendship also goes through our internal filter and when we choose our lovers unconsciously, even our friends are chosen unconsciously, as we intuitively understand who our true friends might be.
Apart from the fact that there is this unconscious and intuitive filter that we exert when we choose our friends or lovers, we are also consciously attracted to the people with whom we develop lasting relationships and friendships. This attraction may be sexual, but we are most likely drawn to the personality, someone whose personal style, gestures, and attitudes seem fascinating, intriguing, or just similar. There could be a narcissistic theory for this as we choose friends who can look, talk, or think like us and usually this mental report exists from the beginning. Just as love can happen at first sight, friendship can also start with ‘likes’ at first sight.
Now, this taste could have several gradations and in some cases you would simply like to remain as a contact as in social networks. You simply follow someone on Twitter or add someone as a friend on Facebook because there is a basic or unconscious taste or at least an understanding that there might be some gain from the virtual relationship. However, this is the first superficial layer of friendship, just like you would smile or share news with a complete stranger on a train without ever getting back in touch or meeting again. This type of friendship is the “random friendship” variety.
Most of your friends on the social network that you don’t know would be such random and strange friends that you meet once and share a random conversation on a flight, train or bus, they would also be such random friends. This is the first layer or stage of friendship and in most cases we do not go beyond this stage. Most of the people we meet in our lives would be random friends. This is a friendship without expectations from both sides. This type of friendship satisfies our basic needs for social interaction and communication. Let’s say for example, you give a speech at a conference and some people ask you questions and you answer them, for you these are your listeners but in this basic interaction there is a sense of story and almost an initial level of friendship. These, your listeners who choose to communicate with you are your random friends and fulfill your interaction and communication needs.
The next stage of friendship is the distal stage of friendship in which there is some unconscious or conscious expectation of friendship and there may be a conscious sexual or emotional attraction. This type of friendship is with people with whom you communicate regularly and who are probably also interested in their activities. Distal friends are people you may or may not know, but they are people with whom you want to have a meaningful long-term relationship, and in most cases, you have some insight into what is going on in their social or personal lives. This is the second level of friendship and the second type of friendship and although there are expectations of this type of relationship, there may not be a clear idea of what expectations there are. You just know that you want to stay in touch with those friends and that they are more than just contacts. These friends satisfy our needs for power and recognition, since with such friends we have the assurance that there are people in the world who care about us and are interested in our lives, dreams and achievements.
The third stage and type of friendship is of a close and proximate variety and is friendship between family members, close friends from school, close co-workers, and friendship between spouses and lovers. In this type of friendship there can be high expectations and sometimes there is an intuitive emotional connection. The initial reason for the friendship could be physical attraction as in spouses or simply emotional connection as with family members or there could be a shared life and shared physical activity as in the case of friends from school or school. job. Close or close friends would know most of the details of your life and this type of friendship carries expectations of sharing that may or may not be realistic. For example, if sons and daughters are leaving home to work or study abroad, parents who are still close friends would expect their children to talk to them every week, and this is not always possible. These close or close friends or the friendship stage meet our basic needs for safety, love, and security.
Therefore, from these stages or types of friendship, you would know that the most essential types of friends are close friends followed by distal friends and then random friends. Some people have more random friends than others and therefore have an outgoing and outgoing personality. These individuals are generally more curious about the world, have leadership, are more open and communicative, and are possibly also very creative. However, their main needs are social interaction and communication.
The second type of individual has more distant friends or social contacts with whom they are neither too close nor completely distant. These individuals have a wide range of expectant social contacts, but few random contacts, and have a mixed extrovert-introvert personality pattern. That means that on a scale of 10, their extroversion would be 5 to 7. The primary need for these individuals is power or recognition. Of course, this could have several possibilities, since with public or social figures and personalities such as writers, actors or politicians, there will naturally be more random contacts, but as a natural preference some public personalities will prefer social recognition rather than social communication. This preference is the foundation of their social personality and would define the type of friendship they choose to have.
The third type of individual is completely introverted and these are poets or artists or simply people who like to work on their own and rely heavily on their close network of friends and family. These people may have limited social contacts and very few random contacts and may not enjoy leadership positions. In some cases, their introversion or distancing would overshadow any leadership skills they have. These people can also be very creative, but this creativity can lead to complex ideas and highlight the subjective. In this case, close friendship that meets the needs of love, security and protection are the primary needs of such individuals and such individuals are more oriented towards emotion and security, or towards home and family rather than communication or recognition. From these three friendship patterns it is possible to delineate these three types of social personality based on social interactions.
Of course, at this time this is popular psychology and very little research in social psychology has studied friendship levels, friendship on social media, or friendship styles that could be related to personality. However, in the future, psychology will not be able to avoid this type of research and, with a greater importance of social networks and virtual friendship, psychology will have to study how friendships are formed, why certain people become our own. friends and why different levels of friendship are reached with different people. individuals. Although there are theories about friendship and group formation in children, more studies are needed on adult relationship formation and friendship in psychology. Research studies should also be conducted to determine whether people with more random friends are always curious and creative who seek to communicate, and whether people with more distant friends and fewer random friends seek power and achievement, and whether introverts rely primarily on security. emotional. With greater technological possibilities and an always connected world, friendship continues to be a very fertile area of study in the social sciences.