Companions before dates, but only if your partner doesn’t like your date.
Men are more likely to be friends if they don’t share the same tastes in women, new research has shown, highlighting how competition for the fairer sex can cause friction in male relationships.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relations, however, found that the same was not true for female friendships.
According to the results, a woman’s taste preferences towards men had no impact on whether or not she got along with another woman.
“This study provides the first evidence that men’s mate preferences can influence their attitudes toward potential new friends without any knowledge,” said lead researcher Kelly Campbell.
For the study, Campbell and his team recruited 38 students from Southern California. 20 were men and 18 women. All participants were heterosexual.
Participants were each shown 20 photos of the opposite sex and were asked to rank them from most attractive to least attractive. Ten of the images depicted celebrities, while ten images of strangers depicted strangers.
Then, participants took part in a 3-hour “speed-friending” session, organized separately for men and women.
Each participant met and interacted for three minutes, before completing a short survey to rate their attraction to the friendship.
Interestingly, when analyzing the surveys, researchers noticed a trend among men: They were more likely to have higher “friendship attraction” toward men who did not share their taste preferences toward women.
The same trend was not observed among female participants.
Given the small size of the participant group, the academics say a larger-scale study is needed to confirm their research findings.
New York Post
