Evolution and Human Behavior 44 (2023) - Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others

Oct 22, 2026

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Intuition and research alike suggest that people prefer friends to be prosocial—especially kind and trustworthy. This study examines how friend preferences operate when dyadic friendships are embedded in wider social networks, where friends repeatedly interact with others and such interactions can bring positive or negative consequences. Across six cross-national studies (N = 1183), results show preferences differ by target, including desires for greater prosociality toward oneself and sometimes preference for more vicious behavior toward enemies.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Friend preferences and prosociality

Embedded dyad framework and predictions

Study approach and cross-national testing

Evolution and Human Behavior 44 (2023) 88–98 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Evolution and Human Behavior journal [homepage:](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ens)[ www.elsevier.com/locate/ens](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ens) | Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Jaimie Arona Krems a, *, Rebecka K. Hahnel-Peeters b, Laureon A. Merrie a, Keelah E.G. Williams c, Daniel Sznycera
a The Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis (OCEAN), Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, United States b Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, United States
c Department of Psychology, Hamilton College, United States | | | | | A R T I C L E I N F O | | A B S T R A C T | | | Keywords:
Friendship
Friend preferences Partner preferences Embedded dyaf framework Relationship science Close relationships | | Intuition and research alike suggest that people prefer friends to be prosocial—particularly kind and trustworthy. Here, we examine these preferences in light of the fact that dyadic friendships are embedded in wider social networks. Because our friends recurrently interact with other people, and these friend-other interactions can have various positive and negative effects on us, people should possess distinct preferences not only for how our friends behave toward us but also for how friends behave toward different other people (e.g., strangers, rivals). In six studies (N = 1183; two pre-registered) with complementary designs and cross-national samples (U.S. community, U.S. student, India community), we find: (a) When the targets of best friends’ behavior are not specified, people’s friend preferences track how one wants friends to behave toward oneself. Replicating patterns found in past work,(b) people generally want friends to be kinder and more trustworthy than not. But (c) people also want friends to be more prosocial toward oneself than toward others, and (d) people sometimes prefer friends who are more vicious than prosocial, for instance, toward one’s enemies. These findings challenge some long-held conclusions about friend preferences, expand the known range of traits preferred in close relationship partners, and enrich our understanding of what it means to deem people, for example, “kind,” as such evaluative personality concepts may by default be indexed to the self. | | In October 2018, the City Council of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—the city of brotherly love—passed a formal resolution welcoming a new sports mascot, Gritty. It read: “…Gritty may be a hideous monster, but he is our hideous monster.” (Gym, 2018) 1. Introduction Most work on close relationships, especially friendships, tends to focus on the dyad and thus on how people want to be treated by their dyadic partners (i.e., their friends) (Hall, 2012; Huang, Ledgerwood, & Eastwick, 2020; Sprecher & Regan, 2002; Wiseman, 1986). What matters is that one’s friend treats one well. In line with such thinking, robust evidence suggests that people prefer friends who are, for example, kind to them and disfavor those who are vicious to them (e.g., Cottrell, Neuberg, & Li, 2007; Fehr, 1996; Hall, 2011, 2012; Perlman, Stevens, & Carcedo, 2014; Sprecher & Regan, 2002). Somewhat similarly to such‘canonical’ findings, ‘cooperative accounts’ of partner choice might predict that what matters is a friend’s overall prosociality—to oneself or others—and so people should prefer friends who are maximally prosocial (to oneself and others) (for reviews—but not necessarily support for—such accounts, see Barakzai & Shaw, 2018; Hess & Hagen, 2006).1 Here, we integrate adaptationist theories of friendship, which emphasize friends’ roles in providing one another preferential social support (DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996), with our embedded dyad framework, and we test su

FAQs

What do people generally want from close friends in terms of behavior?

People typically want friends to be kind and trustworthy toward them, favoring prosocial behavior rather than viciousness.

How does the embedded dyad framework change the way friend preferences should be understood?

It predicts that because friends interact with other people beyond the dyad, people may hold distinct preferences for how friends behave toward different targets, not only toward oneself.

What do the six studies find about preferences when targets are not specified?

When the targets of a best friend’s behavior are not specified, friend preferences align with how one wants friends to behave toward oneself.

Oct 22, 2026

Uploaded by Jiven