Trait Valuation and Friendship Competition Tactics

​​Good friends are vital to human health. They help us live longer, meet our spouses, care for our children, and even make more friends (Bleske & Buss, 2000; Chetty et al., 2022; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996; DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009). But our resources (e.g., time) are limited, such that people can maintain only so many social bonds simultaneously (Dunbar, 2018). Moreover, just as people vary in romantic desirability, people vary in their desirability as friends. Namely, some individuals outperform others on a variety of friend-relevant traits—traits themselves which are also differentially valued. For example, some friend-relevant traits are likely to be highly valued universally, such as trustworthiness, kindness, and loyalty. Other traits–including physical strength and emotional intelligence—may be valued differentially depending on both the target’s and agent’s gender, culture, and ecological background. This makes for a “friend market” wherein desirable friends have limited friend slots to fill, and more people want to be their friends than they can accommodate. People must navigate this market, ideally garnering the most desirable friends possible. To this end, people are likely to compete for friends—just as they do for mates. We propose that individuals compete for friends via two core tactics: self-promotion (emphasizing one’s own value) and competitor derogation (undermining rivals’ value). If people possess a psychology calibrated for friend competition, the traits people value in friends should be the same traits that people (a) self-promote when attempting to make friends and (b) derogate in friend rivals. In an undergraduate student sample, we offer a first test of this psychology of friend competition.