Congratulations to Daniel Cowen and SCOOP colleagues Tobias Stark, Vincenz Frey, and Andreas Flache for their recently published article, “Trends of Friends – Time dynamics of Surface- and Deep- level traits in friendship formation and maintenance,” published in Social Networks.
Their article considers what kinds of similarities matter most at different stages of friendship: demographics, shared interests, or personalities? To find out, they studied a group of students as they developed friendship over time, looking at their visible traits like nationality and gender, and also their personal qualities (Were they social? Enjoy parties? Study hard?).
They found that both shared demographics and shared interests help people form friendships. However, once the students got to know each other better, their demographic similarities became less relevant. Over time, shared interests and personality traits were most important for sustaining friendships.
You can read the (open access) article here.
