5/10/2014 On Friendships | Psychology Today

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-spark/201405/friendships 1/6
The recent claim by some social scientists that friendships are as
necessary for health as sex, a balanced diet, and exercise is a new
idea.Freud assumed that an anxious or depressed woman was probably
deprived of gratifying sexual experiences. Lack of friendships has
replaced sexual frustration as a reason for the same symptoms because
the material advances and social changes of the past 100 years,
especially in developed nations, made it possible for many adults to
survive without an interdependent relationship with one or more others.
As a result, the number of extremely close emotional bonds with peers
was reduced. A common response to this state of affairs was a feeling
ofloneliness.
Historys muse changes the script for the human narrative on an
unpredictable schedule. Fifteenth-century Europeans felt unsure of their
salvation; 400 years later the same populations wanted more freedom of
expression; contemporary groups wish for closer personal relationships.
These motives are experienced as intense feelings, but their origin is
traceable to societal changes, not biology. Fifteenth-century Chinese did
not worry about salvation; nineteenth-century Tibetan monks did not feel
deprived of freedom, and adults living in isolated villages in Hudson Bay,
the Australian outback, or Patagonia do not feel they are deprived of the
joys of many close friendships. They pray for good weather.
Commentators from a variety of cultural backgrounds recognized that
although friendships contribute to happiness, this emotion assumes
varied forms. The ancient Greeks emphasized the mutual pleasures that
friends derive from the relationship. The Romans celebrated the utilitarian
aspect of the bond. Friends had an obligation to help to each other
when one member of the pair needed money, a letter of
recommendation, or an appearance in court. Buddhism and Islam placed
On Friendships
The desire for friends requires a belief in their value
Published on May 1, 2014 by Jerome Kagan, Ph.D. in The Human Spark
Food, water, shelter, sleep, and protection from harm are biological necessities humans must satisfy. But youth
and adults have a remarkable ability to invent a large number of experiences they believe they must have, once
the five biological needs are satisfied. Salvation, beautiful children, a large home, a Mercedes Benz, fame,
respect, and many friends are high on the list of imagined prizes. What distinguishes these experiences from the
biological needs is a prior belief in their value. Without this premise the pleasure of pursuing and attaining
these goals would be severely diluted. A woman would feel burdened, rather than vital, if she did not believe that
transforming a disturbed, adopted toddler who had suffered abuse in foster homes would constitute proof of her
capabilities as a mother. This requirement for a prior commitment to the value of an activity and goal is irrelevant
for the pleasure that accompanies eating warm soup by a fire when one is hungry and cold.
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5/10/2014 On Friendships | Psychology Today
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greater importance on the spiritual and ethical guidance friends give each
other. Few commentators suggested that the absence of friends
reflected a serious biological dysfunction or mental illness. Why then
have some eminent social scientists and philosophers argued recently
that friendships are biologically necessary?
As usual, a number of relatively independent events elevated friendships
from a source of pleasure to a biological requirement. First, friends can
function as therapists who alleviate anothers worries. Increased
migration from rural areas to large cities generated anxiety over being a
victim of a robbery, rape, or mugging. The media fed these anxieties by
reminding everyone of the dangers of a terrorist attack, a dirty nuclear
bomb, anthrax in the water supply, AIDS, SARS, climate change, the
crass dishonesty of strangers, and even the purity of an antibiotic
purchased at a local pharmacy . Television screens on September 22,
2013 were filled with pictures of bloodied bodies lying on the floor of a
posh mall in Nairobi following an attack by a terrorist group from
Somalia. It is easy to imagine experiencing a similar horror when one
visited a favorite mall. Conversations with friends can mute these
worries.
The increased number of college graduates and professionals with
advanced degrees created pools of talent in some areas that were larger
than the number of available jobs. Anyone with a friend in the right place
had a definite advantage. Stephen Case, the founder of AOL and the
2013 commencement speaker at the University of North Carolina in
Chapel Hill, told the 6,000 graduating seniors that friends were absolutely
necessary in the business world. He confessed that he would not have
become a successful entrepreneur without the help of loyal friends.
Cases argument for the utility of friendships was inconsistent with
mymemory of the rise of the nineteenth-century robber barons, such as
Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford. So I
went to the library and borrowed several books containing
commencement talks given many decades earlier. A day of reading
revealed that Cases theme was rare in commencement speeches given
before 1960. The earlier talks emphasized the need to be independent
and able to resist the opinions of friends. Ben Barres is a neuroscientist
at Stanford University who became a scientist a full generation after I
chose psychology. I was surprised by Barress advice to graduate
students in the natural sciences in 2013. He told them to pick the right
mentor and to award less importance to satisfying any special curiosity
they wished to gratify. I used to tell my students that their most important
task was to pick a question that engaged their passion. It appears that
Barres thinks my advice is not adaptive in 2014. When I joined the
Harvard faculty in 1964 one of every two Ph. D. biologists had a tenure
track academic job. That proportion is now one out of seven. Under
these new conditions graduate students do need the friendship of an
older mentor and friends in the right places.
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5/10/2014 On Friendships | Psychology Today
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The growth of large bureaucratic institutions- high schools, universities,
corporations, scientific laboratories, government agencies contributed
to the current emphasis on friends by generating feelings of isolation or,
in some cases, anomie. At the same time, the contraceptive pill reduced
the number of siblings and cousins who might form close relationships.
The greater participation of women in the workforce meant fewer family
picnics and holiday dinner parties.
Middle-class parents born after 1950 made their contribution to the
enhanced feelings of isolation in their adolescent offspring by
communicating their expectation of sculpting a perfect adolescent who
combined high grades and diverse accomplishments with supreme self-
confidence. Many of these children grew up with the illusion they were
princesses or princes entitled to anything they desired and obsessed with
burnishing their egos by placing their satisfactions ahead of the needs of
others. It is not surprising that, as adults, they would find it easy to betray
lovers, spouses, and friends if the disloyalty was necessary to gratify a
personal wish. This degree of narcissism, combined with the possibility of
betrayal, made it difficult for one person to commit fully to another. As a
result, a feeling of loneliness pervades the current cohort.
The growing skepticism among Americans and Europeans over the
traditional premise that some moral beliefs are absolutely binding
rendered friends an important source of assurance that one possessed a
measure of virtue. The loss of moral certainty was particularly frustrating
to the young who search for a code to guide daily decisions. Then, lo and
behold, Facebook, Twitter, and iPhones arrived to supply a
steady source of information from peers that spelled out the ethical
beliefs a network of acquaintances held. More than 90 percent of
Americas adolescents exchange internet messages with peers at least
once a day; about 5 percent are regarded as addicted.
These exchanges among peers shape consensus, at least within the
network, on the appropriateness or impropriety of varied sexual
practices, drinking, recreational drugs, loyalty to parents, usual costume,
respect for teachers, importance of academic
achievement, and careerchoices. Since most youths are likely to
converse with peers who share their values, each network validates the
belief system of every other member of the group. These communications
serve the ethical function that Buddhists envisioned for friendships.
There is, of course, a dark side to these networks. A teenager who
violates one of the groups ethical rules is liable to be the target of a
barrage of cyberbullying that generates anxiety and a feeling of isolation.
Close to one third of American adolescents said they experienced
cyberbullying by one or more peers during 2012. In rare cases the
victims of continuous, harsh attacks are driven to suicide. Rebecca
Sedwick was a bullied middle-school adolescent who one morning in
September 2013 climbed the tower of an abandoned cement plant and
jumped to her death. George Orwells dark, 1949 novel 1984 predicted
5/10/2014 On Friendships | Psychology Today
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surveillance by the government, not by ones friends.
Many youth and young adults do feel lonely. This state is not an
illusion. I suspect, however, that an important source of this feeling is
uncertainty over the moral imperatives they ought to honor under all
circumstances, in addition to the belief, which blossomed after the
1960s, that they ought to be free of all constraints on their personal
desires. Friendships reduce the moral uncertainty by creating an
imperative of loyalty to those in the network, although they limit personal
freedom to some degree. I am suggesting that loneliness can emerge
when individuals find themselves without a mission that can absorb their
passion, whether a career, hobby,marriage, or role as parent. Writers,
painters, composers, and scientists who enjoy their work rarely complain
of being lonely, despite the fact that they are often alone. The majority of
Americans, who are not in these roles, are tempted to interpret the feeling
that accompanies a lack of commitment to a mission as the product of too
few friends. This interpretation has become the default explanation for an
uncertain mood, as sexual conflict was chosen by many Europeans as
the reason for the same mood a century earlier. The feelings humans
are capable of experiencing change little over time; the interpretations
change regularly. Between 5 and 10 percent of the unmarried adults
in most societies are quiet, introverted, and socially anxious, and have
been so sincechildhood. Before the internet they read books, knitted,
wrote, went to convents, migrated to isolated regions, or found a solitary
hobby. Todays socially anxious introverts can use the
internet to avoid direct social interactions. If Lee Harvey Oswald had
been born after 1990 he might not have assassinated John Kennedy; had
T. S. Eliot been born the same year he might not have become a poet.
Friendships have the important advantage of persuading each
partner that he or she has accomplished something of importance. The
malevolent implication of this belief is that those who are friendless have
failed a critical life test. For those who are neither rich, accomplished,
famous, nor highly educated the possession of many friends protects
them from the corrosive shame of complete failure. The belief that one
has many friends has become a way to mute feelings
of incompetence, a source of support when the mind dwells too long on
the threats lurking in the environment, a useful resource in getting a job
or promotion, a replacement for smaller families and fewer
gatherings, and a basis for an ethical code. It is not surprising, then,
that social scientists made friendships as vital as vitamins and social
isolation as painful as a broken ankle.
The seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal would have
disagreed with the current celebration of friendships. He wrote
in Pensees," All the unhappiness of men arises from one single
fact. That they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber to bid a man
live quietly is to bid him live happily. The writer Albert Camus rephrased
Pascal three centuries later: "There is no greater joy than to live alone
5/10/2014 On Friendships | Psychology Today
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and unknown. History, not biology, created the premise that friendships
are necessary for a satisfying and healthy life. But, as I noted, the
pleasures that close friendships provide require a prior belief in their
value. Pascal was not unhappy, despite the fact that he had few friends,
because he had not elevated this relationship to a position of high value.
Many years ago I saw a 20 minute silent film that captures the theme of
this essay. A man walking on an isolated country road trips and cannot
extract a leg that that is stuck in a sinkhole. The man waves for help
whenever a car passes but no one stops. After his legs, arms, and
trunk have sunk deeper into the hole a passerby steals some of his
clothes lying outside the hole. In the final scene, when only his head is
visible, a second passerby stamps on the victims head and he
disappears. The haunting 2007 Chinese film Little Moth portrays
each individual as a commodity that is bought and sold. In the final
scene a crippled, eleven year old girl, sold by her father to a stranger
who used her to beg for money on street corners, sits alone on a
deserted pavement by a highway as dusk approaches.
The authors of these two chilling scripts did not intend to tell viewers that
the man in the sinkhole or the crippled girl lacked friendships. Rather,
the message was that the muse of history, in a foul mood, composed a
chapter in the human narrative that deprived many of the reassuring
belief that most people are loyal, kind, and honest and at least one
person cares about their welfare. A skeptical view of this idealistic
message, which began to grow following the disillusions generated by the
first world war, explains the popular reception of T. S Eliots The
Wasteland and James Joyces Ulysses. A mood of loneliness peaked
following the horrors of the Second World War and the threat of an
irrational nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet
Union. The current preoccupation with friendships owes its vitality, in part,
to the need to make a lie of the depressing possibility that each of us is
alone in a callous world of uncaring narcissists.
A Japanese entrepreneur established an agency that rents relatives for
attendance at weddings and funerals. The English translation of
the Japanese name for the firm is We want to cheer you up. A similar
business in New Jersey rents friends for $24.95 an hour. These new
commercial ventures invite us to drop the faade and admit that it is not
very important whether the person we are hiking, drinking, dancing, or
sleeping with is an old friend or a rented companion. I hope this is not
true.
Close relationships with a particular other can be a source of deep
pleasure. I am absolutely certain that Homer would not have had
Odysseus persist against Scylla, Charybdis, and Circe in order to
return to Penelope, waiting patiently for him in Ithaka, if she had been a
rented wife.
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