quinta-feira, agosto 13, 2009
Dwarf
"Other researchers argue that people are pretty good at seeing at least the building blocks of their friend’s personalities. And in certain realms, like judging intelligence and creativity, there’s evidence that our friends are actually more perceptive about us than we are, if only because any illusions they may have about us are dwarfed by the illusions we have about ourselves.
[...]
our conversations are usually meant not so much to gather information as to establish rapport and to bond - in short, to make friends. And we do that by focusing on areas of agreement and avoiding topics that might cause friction. Our natural tendency toward comradeship makes us, ironically, leery of learning too much about the people we’re befriending.
[...]
we’re good enough at picking out the important stuff to have a rough idea of what we’re getting in a relationship - and a rough idea may be all we really need. Swann and Gill coined the term “pragmatic accuracy” to describe the bounded, everyday knowledge that allows us to establish the necessary common ground for a friendship, or even a marriage. It’s just that the knowledge may never get nearly as deep as we think.
[...]
men seek out “side-by-side” friendships that center on sharing activities and interests, women look more for “face-to-face” relationships that provide emotional support and a chance to comfortably unburden themselves. Both require some measure of mutual knowledge to work, but they depend even more on a sort of nonjudgmental steadiness and presence. As much as anything else, what friends do is simply keep us company.
[...]
“If you don’t know everything about someone else, you still enjoy the time you spend with each other,” says Delia Baldassarri, a sociologist and assistant professor at Princeton who has studied people’s perceptions of their friends’ political attitudes. 'In certain ways, you may even enjoy it more'".
Drake Bennett, the Boston Globe
0 comments
[...]
our conversations are usually meant not so much to gather information as to establish rapport and to bond - in short, to make friends. And we do that by focusing on areas of agreement and avoiding topics that might cause friction. Our natural tendency toward comradeship makes us, ironically, leery of learning too much about the people we’re befriending.
[...]
we’re good enough at picking out the important stuff to have a rough idea of what we’re getting in a relationship - and a rough idea may be all we really need. Swann and Gill coined the term “pragmatic accuracy” to describe the bounded, everyday knowledge that allows us to establish the necessary common ground for a friendship, or even a marriage. It’s just that the knowledge may never get nearly as deep as we think.
[...]
men seek out “side-by-side” friendships that center on sharing activities and interests, women look more for “face-to-face” relationships that provide emotional support and a chance to comfortably unburden themselves. Both require some measure of mutual knowledge to work, but they depend even more on a sort of nonjudgmental steadiness and presence. As much as anything else, what friends do is simply keep us company.
[...]
“If you don’t know everything about someone else, you still enjoy the time you spend with each other,” says Delia Baldassarri, a sociologist and assistant professor at Princeton who has studied people’s perceptions of their friends’ political attitudes. 'In certain ways, you may even enjoy it more'".
Drake Bennett, the Boston Globe
