Mates before dates — but only if your mate doesn’t fancy your date.
Men are more likely to be friends if they don’t share the same taste in women, new research has shown, highlighting how competition for the fairer sex can cause friction in male relationships.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, found that the same wasn’t true for female friendships, however.
According to the findings, a woman’s taste preference in men had no bearing on whether or not she gets along with another female.
“This study provides the first evidence that men’s mate preferences may influence their attitudes towards new potential friends at zero-acquaintance,” lead researcher, Kelly Campbell, declared.
For the study, Campbell and her team recruited 38 college students who hailed from Southern California. 20 were male and 18 were female. All participants were straight.
The participants were each shown 20 photos of the opposite sex and asked to rank them from most to least attractive. Ten of the images were of celebrities, while 10 strangers were of strangers.
Afterward, the participants partook in a 3-hour “speed-friending” session, held separately for men and women.
Each participant met and interacted with each other for three minutes, before completing a short survey to evaluate their friendship attraction.
Interestingly, when analyzing the surveys, researchers noticed a trend among men: They were more likely to have higher “friendship attraction” with males who did not share their taste preferences in women.
The same trend was not observed in the female participants.
Given the small size of the participant group, the academics say a larger-scale study is needed to confirm the results of their research.