Despite the importance of friendship, the traits that people seek in a friend are not well understood. Here, we pursue the hypothesis that same-sex friendships evolved as ongoing cooperative relationships, so friend preferences should at least partially focus on those traits that would have made someone a good cooperative partner within the conditions of the human ancestral environment. We tested this hypothesis in a face perception paradigm in which undergraduate participants rated the friend desirability of target faces that were also rated on several traits hypothesized to be relevant to friend choice. This allowed us to test the actual predictors of attraction, rather than relying on self-reported preferences. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that judgments of a target person’s desirability as a friend depended on perceptions of their ability to create material benefits in the ancestral environment (e.g., skill as a hunter or gatherer). These effects were not due to an attractiveness “halo effect” or a preference for intelligence more generally. In addition, we found mixed evidence for sex differences that match the typical hunter-gatherer division of labor. We discuss implications of these findings for the study of friend choice, and for understanding social preferences more broadly.

中文翻译：

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社交味蕾：来自政策捕捉研究的同性朋友偏好演变的证据

尽管友谊很重要，但人们对朋友寻求的特质并没有得到很好的理解。在这里，我们假设同性友谊随着持续的合作关系而发展，因此，朋友的喜好至少应部分关注那些在人类祖先环境下可以使某人成为良好的合作伙伴的特征。我们在面孔感知范式中测试了该假设，其中，大学生参加者对目标面孔的朋友可取性进行了评估，而目标面孔也被认为与朋友的选择有关。这使我们能够测试吸引力的实际预测因素，而不是依靠自我报告的偏好。与我们的假设一致，我们发现，对目标人是否适合作为朋友的判断取决于对他们在祖传环境中创造物质利益的能力的感知（例如，作为猎人或收集者的技能）。这些影响并不是由于吸引力“晕轮效应”或更普遍的原因导致了对智力的偏爱。此外，我们发现性别差异与典型的猎人-采集者劳动分工相符的混合证据。我们讨论这些发现对研究朋友选择以及更广泛地理解社会偏好的意义。我们发现性别差异与典型的猎人-采集者劳动分工相符的混合证据。我们讨论这些发现对研究朋友选择以及更广泛地理解社会偏好的意义。我们发现性别差异与典型的猎人-采集者劳动分工相符的混合证据。我们讨论这些发现对研究朋友选择以及更广泛地理解社会偏好的意义。