Why do some people prefer to be friends with the opposite gender, while others do not? A study published in the Journal of Individual Differences explores how personal values affect an individual’s preference for same-sex or heterosocial friendships.
Friendship is a very significant prosocial support system in most people’s lives. People may choose their friends based on many different factors, such as shared interests, proximity, personality, and more. Previous research has shown that most people prefer to have same-sex friends, but most people have at least one friend of the opposite sex regardless. This study expected to see individual differences in preference for same-sex or opposite-sex friendships based on traits such as self-enhancement, self-transcendence, and more.
Study author Tobias Altmann recruited 1,333 German participants online and on-campus. Ages ranged from 18 to 77 years of age with 68.3% of the sample consisting of women. All participants completed measures on heterosociality, or the tendency to have opposite-sex friends, in addition to a measure on personal values.
Results showed that people who valued conformity and traditional values were more likely to have same-sex friendships over opposite-sex friendships. Contrary to hypotheses, those who valued achievement and power or benevolence and universalism did not show increased opposite-sex friendships. This could potentially be due to the fields of participants (primarily psychology, social work, and education) or be because ambitious people may seek out friendship with many people regardless of gender. Women who value self-direction, which includes autonomy and independence, tended to have more opposite-sex friendships. Men showed no significant associations with openness values.
“For women but not for men, going one’s own way was associated with reaching out to a larger number of cross-sex friends,” Altmann explained. “Self-direction is part of the openness to change values, which are juxtaposed with the conservation values of security, tradition, and conformity. Considering that security and tradition were found to be negatively associated with heterosociality, the positive association with self-direction was plausible. However, the nonsignificant findings for men were surprising. It may be the case that for men, internal dispositions play a minor role in the formation of their friendships in general.”
This study took significant steps into understanding the gender differences in preference for heterosociality. But like all research, it has some limitations. One such limitation is that half the participants were a convenience sample of students, which could limit generalizability. Another limitation is that the measure on personal values showed a low Cronbach’s alpha, a measure of internal consistency, which can affect the validity of results.
“In conclusion, values partially explained friendship choices with respect to preferences for same-sex and cross-sex friends and did so differentially for women and men,” Altmann wrote in his study. “However, considering the exploratory character of the study and the small effect sizes, replications and extensions are needed to further substantiate these findings and to explore other potential associations.”
The study, “Sex Differences Partially Moderate the Relationships Between Personal Values and the Preference for Cross-Sex Friendships (Heterosociality)“, was published March 11, 2022.