We may be in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, but it also seems like we’ve never had more ways to meet a new friend, like dating apps that pivoted into friendship apps and online forums where everyone can congregate and get to know one another. And yet, according to a new study, even with all these modern advancements in finding friends, we still look for the same things in our friends we did back when we were cavemen: would they make a good hunter-gatherer?
According to a study published in Evolution and Human Behavior by researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, friendship is more than shared hobbies and a similar sense of humor. We evolved to form long-term bonds with people who look like they knew what the hell they were doing. We like people who are reliable hunting partners or good foragers. People who know how to survive.
How Scientists Found Our Caveman Friendship Instincts
To test the idea, the researchers paired up strangers for a 30-minute conversation and later asked them how much they’d like to be friends. They also ran a second experiment where participants rated photos of strangers after identifying their biggest life goal at the moment. You’d think, given all of our modern obsessions, that the modern person would gravitate toward someone who could do some fancy tech stuff, but participants consistently preferred people who appeared cooperative, competent, physically dominant, attractive, and high status, all traits we’ve more or less found useful to us since we’ve been out-running sabretooth tigers.
Those preferences barely changed based on a participant’s actual modern-day goals in life. Despite all of your modern preferences in a person, your brain is still thinking in Stone Age terms, according to the researchers. We’re still looking for people capable of taking down a mammoth; just now, the mammoths are more metaphorical than they are literal. Can you tackle the problems of the modern day with as much verve and ferociousness as our ancient ancestors once fought tooth and nail to survive, whether they were hunting for meat or scouring far and wide for some delicious berries?
All of the stuff like chemistry and shared interests and sense of humor all still matters. But fundamentally, beneath all of that, we still have the primal need to be around people who seem to have a firm grasp on things. People like people who have their shit together. Who’d a thunk it?
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