The test can predict which friendships will thrive and which will crumble.
Knowing how a friend will react in an irritating situation is a simple test of a good friendship.
Although it is easy to quickly describe someone’s traits, it is harder to predict how they will react in specific situations.
Some people have almost no knowledge of how people close to them will react, while others are surprisingly accurate.
The study of 178 people had them think about a number of scenarios and then predict how irritated they would be and how irritated their friend would be.
For example, imagine your friend is talking to someone who is very sceptical.
Here is the authors’ explanation:
“When someone is overly skeptical of information that he/she receives.
When he/she questions things that are generally accepted. When he/she is very hard to convince of something.”
The results showed that people with better relationships knew which situations really set their friends off and which didn’t bother them.
The authors call these ‘if-then’ profiles.
Knowing a friend’s ‘if-then’ profile was linked to lower levels of relationship conflict and less frustration.
Ms Charity A. Friesen, the study’s first author, said:
“It’s a more detailed way of understanding personality.
You might know the person is extroverted when they’re out with their friends but more introverted when they’re in a new situation.”
The study tested all kinds of scenarios, including obliviousness, gullibility, social timidity, social boldness and perfectionism.
While people have a natural desire to understand other people’s personalities, it takes more effort to really get to know a person.
Ms Friesen said:
“But, if I’m close to someone, I can really start to learn the if-then profiles, and that’s what’s going to pay off in my relationship.”
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Friesen & Kammrath, 2011).
