psychology
4 characteristics that characterize the circles of friends of the happiest people
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Our friendships are no less important to our life and wellbeing than our partnerships. But what actually characterizes a healthy, strength-giving circle of friends? This is what happiness researchers say: inside.
In some people’s minds, the idea of a perfectly happy life may include partnership. Having a partner with whom we live together, start a family, go on vacation, share our time, money, experiences and feelings seems to some people to be the ultimate or most natural goal of all. On the other hand, there are more and more people who go their way without a partner: in and feel completely comfortable and satisfied. Fittingly, recent psychological research suggests that we do not seem to all need a partnership relationship in our lives to be happy – as long as we have other working relationships. For example friendships.
Friendships achieve a lot that some people expect from a partnership: We can share experiences with our friends, confide in them and exchange ideas, be there for them and feel needed, let them be there for us and much more. Friendships are often even more stable than partnerships, and they also give us more freedom and flexibility. It is currently still uncommon to start a family with friends and raise children, but who knows – maybe this will be completely normal in the future.
Of course, that does not mean that we will no longer believe in love relationships from now on. But before we force a partnership or want so badly that it eats us up, it would certainly be better to invest our energy in our friendships and to appreciate our friends. Perhaps we will find out that we are actually missing nothing, not even a: e partner: in.
Sociologists at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands have examined the ideal characteristics of a circle of friends so that we can feel as comfortable and happy as possible with them. In her book The happiness compass. All the knowledge in the world about happiness in one book put Dr. Michael Kunze and Dr. Silvia Jelincic presented the most important findings of this study.
Four characteristics characterize the circle of friends of the happiest people
1. Diversity
A circle of friends that is as diverse as possible ensures that we can develop different sides of ourselves with our friends and cover diverse needs and interests. We might like to party with one friend, we have deep, inspiring conversations with another friend and a third person is the best way to get us down if we get into something. In addition, a diverse circle of friends helps us to move outside of our bubble and to adjust to people – after all, our society is diverse overall and if we know diversity at least to some extent from our closer environment, it is less fearful and overwhelming for us and we tend to feel it as normal and enriching.
2. Frequent contacts
Even if it’s just a short call at lunchtime while the potatoes are cooking or the WhatsApp on the way home on the train: According to the Dutch study, frequent, i.e. usually about daily, contacts are an essential part of an intact circle of friends so that they can has a positive effect on our sense of happiness. Of course, we don’t have to be in contact with all of our friends every day. But at least a friendly exchange is basically good in everyday life.
3. Variety
From the point of diversity alone it can be seen that several friends are obviously better than one. And the study by the research group from Utrecht confirms this assumption. A higher number of friends has a positive effect on our social trust, our health and our perception of stress. However, there is an individually varying upper limit for the perfect number of friendships. As the psychologist Robin Dunbar was able to show in a sociological study, this is between 100 and 200 for most people. In addition, of course, not all of our friendly relationships are equally intense and intimate. In our closest circle of friends there is usually not much more than five people, like the psychologist Felix Reed-Tsochas from the University of Oxford mirror betrayed in a conversation.
4. You can rely on at least one person in an emergency
Another important feature of a lucky circle of friends led the Harvard professor and head of the unique Harvard study of adults development Dr. Robert Waldinger in conversation with Dr. Leon Windscheid in the podcast Cared for feeling to: Is there at least one person we could contact in the middle of the night if we are feeling bad or something is wrong? A person who we know that we can turn to and rely on in an emergency is worth more to our happiness than a high account balance or a luxury apartment in a prime location. And so the time we devote to our friendships is always well invested.
Sources used: Dr. Michael Kunze and Dr. Silvia Jelincic, The Happiness Compass. All the world’s knowledge about happiness in one book, edition a, spiegel.de, ted.com, Betreutes Fühlen (Podcast)