The Surprising Science Behind Earthshakingly Wonderful Friendships
bsp; Not Having Enough Friends Can Kill You Carlin Flora: Julianne Holt-Lunstad did a meta-analysis of social support and health outcomes and found that not having enough friends or having a weak social circle is the same risk factor as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. We've had such great public health campaigns against smoking in the last 20-odd years, and now we're finally learning that having a good and satisfying social life is just as important, if not more important,…
3 minutes
How To Make Friends Easily And Strengthen The Friendships You Have
iendship is a good thing. That's hardly front-page news -- but somehow we all forget how important it is. We take friends for granted. As we raise families we neglect friends. We don't put in the effort to make and keep friends. And the problem is growing. In 1985 most people said they had 3 close friends. In 2004 the most common number was zero. Via Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect: In a survey given in 1985, people…
8 minutes
Five Simple Things That Will Make Your Life Better
bsp; 1) Want to be happy? It's more about perspective than anything else. Write down three good things that happen to you every day. Via Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being: Every night for the next week, set aside ten minutes before you go to sleep. Write down three things that went well today and why they went well. You may use a journal or your computer to write about the events, but it is important that you…
3 minutes
5 Secrets To Clicking With People
w can you make a good first impression? First impressions matter even more than you think. They’re the most important part of any job interview. And once they’re set, they are very hard to resist. Most advice on the subject is defensive, just telling you how to not offend. How can you strategically make a good impression? From the outset, frame the conversation with a few well-rehearsed sentences regarding how you want to be perceived. This will end up being the structure the other…
4 minutes
What’s a simple thing that can improve a first impression?
bsp; A handshake really does make a difference. Via Science Daily: The study was led by Beckman Institute researcher Florin Dolcos and Department of Psychology postdoctoral research associate Sanda Dolcos. They found, as they wrote, that "a handshake preceding social interaction enhanced the positive impact of approach and diminished the negative impact of avoidance behavior on the evaluation of social interaction." And: "We found that it not only increases the positive effect toward a favorable interaction, but it also diminishes…
1 min read
Here’s How To Know Who Your Real Friends Are
ok at your phone texting and calling patterns. Scientists are realizing they give powerful insights about relationships. Via Sciencemag.org: Just by analyzing the calling patterns, the researchers could accurately label two people as friends or nonfriends more than 95% of the time. But the results, published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the mobile phone data were better at predicting friendship than the subjects themselves. Thirty-two pairs of subjects switched from calling each other…
3 minutes
The Key To Being Liked And Being More Influential
e key to being liked and being more influential is similarity. You like names better when they are similar to yours. You even prefer brands that merely share your initials. Birthdays are easier to remember when they are closer to yours. You even prefer people who move the way you do. Demonstrating that you have something in common with someone else makes them more likely to help you. Salesmen deliberately fake little similarities in order to influence you and connect…
2 minutes
Is Facebook making us lonely?
the latest issue of The Atlantic Stephen Marche has a long, excellent article on the subject. I found these bits most interesting: Moira Burke, until recently a graduate student at the Human-Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon, used to run a longitudinal study of 1,200 Facebook users. That study, which is ongoing, is one of the first to step outside the realm of self-selected college students and examine the effects of Facebook on a broader population, over time. She concludes…
3 minutes
