What pushes our ‘like’ button? The revealing science behind our friendships

  • 📰 smh
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 101 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 44%
  • Publisher: 80%

Australia Headlines News

Australia Latest News,Australia Headlines

What pushes our ‘like’ button? The revealing science behind our friendships | Amanda Hooton

Since early 2020 and the beginning of COVID-19, there has come a moment in everyone’s life when they’ve wondered about the big issues. Will I die of COVID? Will I kill my loved ones before lockdown ends and be tried for murder? And if I do, who will visit me in jail? Which is really another way of saying: do I still have any friends?

A girl with dark, curly hair was sitting at the desk beside mine. She, I would later learn, had been at the school since kindergarten, and was scarily good at maths: she certainly seemed totally organised and serene. She lent me a spare pencil, exercise book, eraser – maybe even a spare calculator. I remember noting, with pleasure and surprise, how nice all her stuff was.

Today, I still call this curly-haired person my best friend, even though we both have other friendships which are, in their own ways, equally close. But in friendship, perhaps, history is destiny. We have been friends so long – through years of physical separation ; through relationships and break-ups; through marriage and partnership; through childbirth and parenting – that I’ve come to feel our friendship is an immutable fact of my existence: I am alive, therefore she is my friend.

Virtuous friendships are those in which, for some reason unconnected to family obligation or personal advancement, both parties are deeply invested in the other’s happiness, success, and path through life. They feel deeply bonded to each other, and consistently and genuinely act in each other’s best interests. Aristotle didn’t call such partnerships “best-friendships”, but he did write that in such cases: “A friend is another self.

This synchronicity, moreover, remained after controlling for socioeconomic status, religion and ethnicity, and was so strong, researchers were able to train a computer algorithm to predict the strength of two people’s bond well above chance, based solely on their brain scans.become Dovey, meanwhile, found in Bell the way to address a subject – motherhood – that she was determined “never to write about. I had slammed that door closed, and then I met Eliza and everything changed.”is a testament to a friendship that began instantly, and was then vindicated by countless common details in their lives. This is another facet of close friendship that can make it feel fated.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 6. in AU

Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Frydenberg films polling booth stoushTreasurer Josh Frydenberg has filmed an "ugly" confrontation at a pre-polling booth in his marginal Melbourne seat of Kooyong involving the businessman behind the Climate 200 independent push. Anyone considering voting Teal needs to watch the interaction & be at ease voting for this self entitled bully who is the mastermind of these candidates & will expect a return as per the weekend Australian - Confrontation follows him everywhere. FireTheLiarFromTheShire FederalICAC MurdochRoyalCommission
Source: 9NewsAUS - 🏆 10. / 72 Read more »

Woolworths goes up against Amazon, Kogan with $250m MyDeal acquisitionWoolworths has bought an 80 per cent stake in online marketplace MyDeal as it looks to compete with the likes of Kogan, Amazon and Catch. Rename it Theirdeal
Source: theage - 🏆 8. / 77 Read more »

Woolworths goes up against Amazon, Kogan with $250m MyDeal acquisitionWoolworths has bought an 80 per cent stake in online marketplace MyDeal as it looks to compete with the likes of Kogan, Amazon and Catch. domp WoW anyone see this coming or have I not been paying attention
Source: smh - 🏆 6. / 80 Read more »

CLP candidates say they don't know who is behind Back Beetaloo pageCandidate for Lingiari, Damien Ryan, and NT Senate candidate Jacinta Price, who appear in campaigns promoting gas exploration in the Beetaloo Basin say they do not know who is behind the campaign.
Source: abcnews - 🏆 5. / 83 Read more »

Man killed in motorcycle crash outside Darwin, as police raise concerns over high road tollNorthern Territory Police is urging younger drivers to take care on the road, after a fatal motorcycle crash pushes this year's road toll to 20.
Source: abcnews - 🏆 5. / 83 Read more »

Mirvac: stoking housing demand without more supply ‘adds fuel to fire’Policies that increase demand for housing without matching measures that boost the supply of new homes in the market will ultimately push prices, warns Mirvac’s Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz. Only if enough people use them. The reality is these policies are a distraction. Greater regional development is the smart approach, governments have not done their job in building infrastructure where land is more affordable...just consider the growth of FIFO.
Source: FinancialReview - 🏆 2. / 90 Read more »