Friendship
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read --Groucho Marx "What makes us like new acquaintances" --François de La Rochefoucauld "Friends are God's apology for relations." --Hugh Kingsmill |
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Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people. Friendship is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an association. Friendship has been studied in academic fields such as sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and philosophy.
The World Database of Happiness study found that people with close friendships are happier.
Although there are many forms of friendship, some of which may vary from place to place, certain characteristics are present in many types of friendship. Such characteristics include affection, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, mutual understanding and compassion, enjoyment of each other's company, trust, and the ability to be oneself, express one's feelings, and make mistakes without fear of judgment from the friend.
While there is no practical limit on what types of people can form a friendship, friends tend to share common backgrounds, occupations, or interests, and have similar demographics.
See also
- Bromance
- Defriending
- Female bonding
- Fraternization
- Friend of a friend
- Intimate relationship
- Male bonding
- Platonic love
- Romantic friendship
- Social network