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Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague.
Although there are many forms of friendship, certain features are common to many such bonds, such as choosing to be with one another, enjoying time spent together, and being able to engage in a positive and supportive role to one another.
Sometimes friends are distinguished from family, as in the saying "friends and family", and sometimes from Sexual partner (e.g., "lovers and friends"), although the line is blurred with friends with benefits (see also unrequited love).
Friendship has been studied in academic fields, such as communication, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. Various academic theories of friendship have been proposed, including social exchange theory, equity theory, relational dialectics, and attachment styles.
Recent work on friendship in young children investigated the cues they use to infer friendship. Young children use cues such as sharing resources, like snacks, and sharing secrets, especially in older adolescents, to determine friendship status. When comparing cues of similarity in food preference or gender, propinquity, and loyalty in adolescent children, younger children rely on similarity in gender/food preferences but more so propinquity to infer friendship while older adolescents rely heavily on propinquity to infer friendship.
As children mature, they become more reliant on others, as awareness grows. They gain the ability to empathize with their friends, and enjoy playing in groups. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. Establishing good friendships at a young age helps a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life.
Based on the reports of teachers and mothers, 75% of preschool children had at least one friend. This figure rose to 78% through the fifth grade, as measured by co-nomination as friends, and 55% had a mutual best friend. About 15% of children were found to be chronically friendless, reporting periods of at least six months without mutual friends.
Friendships in childhood can assist in the development of certain skills, such as building empathy and learning different problem-solving techniques. Coaching from parents can help children make friends. Eileen Kennedy-Moore describes three key ingredients of children's friendship formation: (1) openness, (2) similarity, and (3) shared fun. ( part 2) ( part3) Parents can also help children understand social guidelines they have not learned on their own. Drawing from research by Robert Selman and others, Kennedy-Moore outlines developmental stages in children's friendship, reflecting an increasing capacity to understand others' perspectives: "I Want It My Way", "What's In It For Me?", "By the Rules", "Caring and Sharing", and "Friends Through Thick and Thin."
A large study of American adolescents determined how their engagement in problematic behavior (such as stealing, fighting, and truancy) was related to their friendships. Findings indicated that adolescents who were less likely to engage in problematic behavior had friends who did well in school, participated in school activities, avoided drinking, and had good mental health. The opposite was true of adolescents who did engage in problematic behavior. Whether adolescents were influenced by their friends to engage in problem behavior depended on how much they were exposed to those friends, and whether they and their friendship groups "fit in" at school.
Friendships formed during Higher education last longer than friendships formed earlier. In late adolescence, cross-racial friendships tend to be uncommon, likely due to prejudice and cultural differences.
Adults may find it particularly difficult to maintain meaningful friendships in the workplace. "The workplace can crackle with competition, so people learn to hide vulnerabilities and quirks from colleagues. Work friendships often take on a transactional feel; it is difficult to say where networking ends and real friendship begins." Many adults value the financial well-being and security that their job provides more than developing friendships with coworkers. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey report that of the people who responded, 8% report having no close friends, with an additional 7% reporting only 1 close friend.
2,000 American adults surveyed had an average of two close friends, defined as "people they had 'discussed important matters' with in the past six months".
Numerous studies with adults suggest that friendships and other supportive relationships enhance self-esteem.
Research within the past four decades has now consistently found that older adults reporting the highest levels of happiness and general well being also report strong, close ties to numerous friends.
As family responsibilities and vocational pressures lessen, friendships become more important. Among the elderly, friendships can provide links to the larger community, serve as a protective factor against depression and loneliness, and compensate for potential losses in social support previously given by family members. Especially for people who cannot go out as often, interactions with friends allow for continued societal interaction. Additionally, older adults in declining health who remain in contact with friends show improved psychological well-being.
Friendships are foremost formed by choice, typically on the basis that the parties involved admire each other and enjoy commonality and socializing. (2026). 9780691188201, Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691188201
Given that friendships provide people with many mental, social, and health benefits, people should want to associate with and form lasting relationships with people who can provide the benefits they need. Thus, people have specific friendship preferences for the types of behaviors and traits that are associated with these benefits. Recent work on friendship preferences shows that while there is much overlap between men and women for the traits they prefer in close same-gender friends (e.g., being prioritized over other friends, friends with varied knowledge/skills), there are some differences: women compared to men had greater preference for emotional support, emotional disclosure, and emotional reassurance, while men compared to women had greater preference for friends that offer opportunities for accruing status, boosting their reputation, and will provide physical aid.
Most people underestimate how much other people like them.
The liking gap can make it difficult to form friendships.
According to communications professor Jeffery Hall, most friendships involve tacitly agreed-upon expectations in six different areas:
Not all relationships have the same balance of each area. For example, women may prefer friendships that emphasize genuine positive regard and deeper self-disclosure, and men may prefer friendships with a little more agency.
The dissolution of a friendship may be taken personally as a Social rejection. Disruptions of friendships are associated with increased guilt, anger, and depression, and may be highly stressful events, especially in . However, potential negative effects can be mitigated if the dissolution of a friendship is replaced with another close relationship.
Male bonding can be more focused on social status, and may discourage the expression of emotional needs. Men are more likely to define friendships in terms of shared physical experiences. Boys report higher levels of physical violence related to their friendships.
Male bonding are generally more like , while female-female friendships are much more attachment-based. This also means that the end of male-male friendships tends to be less emotionally upsetting than that of female-female friendships. Many older men may rely upon a female companion, such as a spouse, to compensate for their comparative lack of social capital. One study found that women in Europe and North America were slightly more likely than men to self-report having a best friend.
Preference for same sex friendships over cross-sex friendships is also called homosociality or gender homophily.
In , friendships are often seen as lesser to familial or romantic relationships. Friendships in Ancient Greece were more utilitarian than affectionate, being based upon obligation and reliance, though different Classical communities understood friendship in different ways, and the Greeks held a much broader conception of friendship than modern English-speaking cultures do. Aristotle wrote of there being three kinds of friendships: those in recognition of pleasure, those in recognition of advantage, and those in recognition of virtue.
When discussing taboos of friendshipThis is an example. it was found that Chinese respondents found more than their British counterparts.
In Multiculturalism countries, children and adolescents tend to form friendships with others of the same race or ethnicity, beginning in preschool, and peaking in middle or late childhood.
A large body of research links friendship and health, but the precise reasons for the connection remain unclear. Most studies in this area are large prospective studies that follow people over time, and while there may be a correlation between the two variables (friendship and health status), researchers still do not know if there is a cause and effect relationship (such as: good friendships improve health). Theories that attempt to explain this link include that good friends encourage their friends to lead more healthy lifestyles; that good friends encourage their friends to seek help and access services when needed; that good friends enhance their friends' coping skills in dealing with illness and other health problems; and that good friends actually affect physiological pathways that are protective of health.
Higher friendship quality directly contributes to self-esteem, self-confidence, and social development. A World Happiness Database study found that people with close friendships are happier, although the absolute number of friends did not increase happiness. Other studies suggested that children who have friendships of a high quality may be protected against the development of certain disorders, such as anxiety and depression.
Conversely, having few friends is associated with dropping out of school, as well as aggression, adult crime, and loneliness. Peer is also associated with lower later aspiration in the workforce and participation in social activities, while higher levels of friendship were associated with higher adult self-esteem.
Having more close friends is correlated with improved mental health and Cognitive skill. However, this association stops once around five friends is reached, after which having more friends is no longer linked to better mental health and is correlated with lower cognition. Additionally, people with few or many friends had more symptoms of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and were less able to learn from their experiences.
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