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Only cattle and sheep like to flock in groups, while beasts of prey always walk alone.
Our life, in fact, is the process of changing from cattle and sheep to beasts, when we are young, we always think that the more friends the better, and take this as an honor, the number of friends can indeed reflect our attraction to the outside world to a certain extent, but the more friends, the higher the happiness?
Regarding the relationship between the number of close friends and happiness, a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health gave the results: friends can significantly improve happiness in middle age.
The results show that nearly 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women report having more than 6 friends who score higher on mental health than others. And this effect is more pronounced in women.
Another seventh of the subjects were reluctant to contact relatives and friends, and their mental health was the worst.
What is the concept of these six friends? 1 to 2 close friends, 3 to 5 friends with moderate closeness (frequent contact, help in times of difficulty, positive mental influence on each other), this is not in the number, but in the right number.
Regarding the number of friends, people always think that the number of their friends is as good as possible, and they are ashamed of the small number of friends, and Xianchi Dai of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong and Kao Si of the University of Macau have also studied the results of a "The Friend Number Paradox":
In the process of interacting with others, people will unconsciously send a signal to each other that they have a large number of friends out of positive qualities and self-improvement attitudes, and this signal can only cause superficial attraction, but will actually hinder the establishment of longer-term and more intimate relationships with others.
And a high-quality life does not need so many friends at all.
This is supported by the following reasons: egocentric bias is an important reason, egocentric bias, as the name suggests, people tend to evaluate evidence, test hypotheses or form conclusions from their original beliefs, opinions, etc.
For example, in a relationship, I always feel that I have given more, and most of my self is good when I recall the past.
Therefore, after having more friends, they may ignore the quality of friendship and focus on the ideal number of friends; from another point of view, when a person has more friends, the greater the ability and responsibility required, and the attention to being able to establish and maintain high-quality friendships will be distracted.
So people tend to build deep relationships with people with smaller circles of friends, providing benefits to each other in social interactions.
Everything has both good and bad aspects, and it's not that the more friends you attract, the better.
Our ultimate goal is to establish high-quality social, in fact, the social level is not entirely related to each other's personal value, nor is it all related to the number, after all, not everyone can climb to the elite class, what is high-quality social: there is high-quality spiritual communication between each other, each positive, and can bring positive influence to each other.
In a revolution in personality psychology, researchers covered all aspects of personality description with the five traits in the Great Five Personality (OCEAN). They are of the following five categories:
Openness: with imagination, aesthetics, emotional richness, creativity and other characteristics;
Conscientiousness: shows the characteristics of competence, fairness, due diligence, restraint, etc.;
Extraversion: shows traits such as enthusiasm, sociality, and optimism;
Agreeableness: trust, altruism, directness, modesty, empathy, etc.;
Neuroticism: Difficulty balancing emotions such as anxiety, hostility, repression, impulsivity, and other emotions, that is, not having the ability to maintain emotional stability. Each trait has a different dimension.
People who show positive traits in the fifth personality can be considered good friends, they are not necessarily successful people from all walks of life, but their attitude, maturity and stability, and personality are generally above average, and when we get along with such people, we will feel comfortable from the inside out, and we can feel the positive energy of the other party.
In addition, in addition to having a relationship with the outside world, high-quality social networking also has a great relationship with ourselves, at least about whether we treat others sincerely, and whether we treat friends kindly and whether we feel superior. In order to establish a high-quality social network, both internal and external conditions are indispensable.
In the middle age, the number of friends will decrease, their personality will gradually become independent and perfect, people will be focused on the family children, and do not need too much feedback attracted by the outside world to measure self-worth, people will do what they want to do in middle age, will have their own fixed hobbies and focused careers.
In the end, you will find that those who will live are middle-aged people with small circles, in this small circle, and a few friends to establish a more profound relationship, more with the family, less with the brothers liquor bureau, when you are young, you can first do addition, make friends, eat more losses does not matter, to middle age, you have to start to do the subtraction lifestyle.
Those who get off the train in your life, don't be obsessed, be grateful, thank them for the beauty they left in your life, let you remember the joy and happiness after many years, so that you can cherish the person in front of you more, and seize the happiness and beauty in front of you.
In middle age, the smaller the circle, the better life.
- The End -
Author | Tommy
The First Psychological Writing Group | A group of young people who like to look up at the stars
参考资料：Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 192-205
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