来源：《今日心理学》
日期：2021年1月30日
Consider the number of friends you have and how you think this makes you look. If the number of friends you have grows, do you become more appealing to other people as a possible friend? Or do you become less appealing? If you were to take a wild guess, what would you say?
想想你有多少朋友，你觉得这会让你看起来怎么样。如果你的朋友越来越多，作为别人潜在的交友对象，你变得更有吸引力？还是吸引力降低了？如果你胡乱猜测，你会怎样认为？
In other words: If you could choose between someone who has a lot of friends or someone who has a handful of friends, which person would you rather have as a friend?
换言之：如果你能在一个有很多朋友的人和一个只有几个朋友的人之间做出选择，你会选择哪个人作为朋友？
A team of researchers explored these questions in a series of studies, and their results highlight an intriguing contradiction between what we assume will make us more inviting as a friend and what we actually like better in others.
一组研究人员对这些问题进行了一系列研究，他们的研究结果突出了一个有趣的矛盾：我们认为自己朋友多会更有吸引力，但我们自己更爱结交那些朋友少的人。
In both online and real-world situations, the investigators found that we have a tendency to presume that we’ll seem more appealing to other people if we have more friends, but when it comes to what we want in a friend, we tend to lean toward people with a somewhat smaller number of friends. They termed this the “friend number paradox.”
在网络和现实世界中，调查人员发现，我们有一种倾向，认为如果我们有更多的朋友，我们似乎会对其他人更有吸引力，但当谈到我们想要怎样的朋友时，我们往往倾向于朋友少一些的人。研究人员称之为“朋友数量悖论”。
Why does this inconsistency happen? Why would we seem to apply different standards to ourselves than others? The primary explanation the researchers put forward is that we humans tend to have a self-concerned viewpoint that leads us to assume that others will rate us as a potential friend in the same way we rate ourselves. In other words, because we anticipate that we’ll seem more appealing to people if we have more friends, we project that notion onto others and assume they’ll assess us in the same manner. Moreover, when we’re thinking about what we wish for in a friend, we’re more inclined to want a connection with someone who can put more effort into nurturing a friendship and who is available to spend time together. As the investigators pointed out, someone with comparatively more friends is not going to be able to put as much of themselves into any one friendship, and we're apt to take that into account and favor people with a somewhat smaller number of friends.
为什么会出现这种不一致呢？为什么我们对自己的标准和对别人的标准不同呢？研究人员提出的主要解释是，我们人类倾向于以自我为中心的观点，这种观点会让我们认为别人会像我们评价自己一样，来评价我们是否是潜在的朋友。换句话说，因为我们预期，如果我们有更多的朋友，我们看起来对别人更有吸引力，我们把这个想法投射到其他人身上，并假设他们会以同样的方式评估我们。此外，当我们考虑我们对朋友的期望时，我们更倾向于与那些能够花更多精力培养友谊、愿意花时间在一起的人建立联系。研究人员指出，朋友相对较多的人不可能在任何一段友谊中投入更多的精力，我们倾向于考虑到这一点，并偏爱朋友较少的人。
The investigators found evidence that we generally assume that other people will like us more if we have somewhat more friends, and that we disregard the fact that others tend to feel the same way we do and are also inclined to pursue friendships with people who have a comparably smaller group of friends.
调查人员发现，有证据表明，我们通常认为，如果我们有更多的朋友，其他人会更喜欢我们，而我们忽视了这样一个事实，即其他人倾向于与我们有同样的感觉，也倾向于追求与朋友相对较少的人的友谊。
Accordingly, as the researchers mentioned, if we try to make it seem as though we’ve got an abundance of friends in an effort to boost our appeal, we may actually be damaging the very goal we’re trying to achieve. So if you have a smaller circle of friends and feel self-conscious about it, or if you think you need to project a different image, you might want to consider the possibility that you actually have more friend appeal than you realize.
因此，正如研究人员提到的，如果我们试图让自己看起来有很多朋友，以提高自己的吸引力，实际上我们可能会破坏我们正在努力实现的目标。所以，如果你的朋友圈很小，对此你很在意别人的看法，或者如果你认为你需要展现一个不同的形象，你可能需要考虑一下，你实际上有比你意识到的更多的吸引力。