Friendship & Health
How Friendships Shape Your Personality
Friendships and personality exist in a bidirectional relationship: we choose friends who resemble our personality (selection) — and are changed by them in return (socialization). Neyer & Wrzus (2018) showed: both effects operate simultaneously, shaping who we become.
Selection: We Choose Similar Friends
People choose friends whose personality resembles their own — the similarity principle applies not only to attitudes but also to personality traits. The effect is especially strong for extraversion and openness.
The mechanism: similar personalities ease communication, reduce conflict, and enable shared activities. We feel comfortable around people who react to the world in a similar way.
Socialization: Friends Shape Us
The reverse effect: friendships change our personality over time. This socialization effect is especially powerful during adolescence, when personality is still malleable, but it continues into adulthood.
Friends influence attitudes, behaviors, and through repeated interaction even stable personality traits. Spending regular time with extraverted friends tends to make you more extraverted yourself — not dramatically, but measurably.
Personality and Friendship Style
Different personality traits lead to different friendship styles: extraverts have larger networks but maintain shallower relationships. Introverts have fewer but deeper friendships.
Agreeable people invest more in relationship maintenance and experience fewer conflicts. Neuroticindividuals may strain friendships through excessive worry and withdrawal — yet they also benefit the most from stabilizing friendships.
The Developmental Perspective
Neyer & Wrzus (2018) emphasize that the interplay between friendship and personality is development-dependent. In youth, socialization effects dominate — friends leave a strong imprint. In adulthood, selection effects prevail — we choose more deliberately.
Viewed across the lifespan, this means: our friendships shape our personality in early years, and our shaped personality later determines our choice of friends.
Your friendships, your growth
Friendships shape who you are. Fraily helps you invest intentionally in the relationships that do you good — and help you grow.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do friendships influence personality?
- Yes, bidirectionally. On the one hand, we choose friends whose personality resembles ours (selection). On the other, friendships change our personality over time (socialization). Neyer & Wrzus (2018) showed that both effects operate simultaneously.
- Which personality traits influence friendship?
- Extraversion makes it easier to form new friendships, agreeableness to maintain existing ones. Openness to experience fosters diverse networks. Neuroticism can strain friendships, but close friends can also have a stabilizing effect.
- Can friendships change your personality?
- Yes, through socialization effects. Friends influence attitudes, behaviors, and over time even stable personality traits. These effects are especially strong in adolescence, when personality is still malleable.
- Is personality similarity important for friendship?
- Yes, but in a nuanced way. Similarity in extraversion and openness is particularly important for forming friendships. For agreeableness and conscientiousness, the effects are weaker. Complementary personalities can also work well together.
Sources
- Neyer, F. J. & Wrzus, C. (2018). Personality and social relationships. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer.
- Selfhout, M., Burk, W., Branje, S., Denissen, J., van Aken, M. & Meeus, W. (2010). Emerging late adolescent friendship networks and Big Five personality traits. Journal of Personality, 78(2), 509–538.
- Harris, K. & Vazire, S. (2016). On friendship development and the Big Five. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(11), 647–667.