There could be a reason characters like Regina George from the film “Mean Girls” are put on a pedestal by their peers.
A recent study found that both women and men prefer when their friends are “vicious” toward their enemies.
The study, published in Elsevier’s Evolution and Human Behavior, explained that “the benefits of friendship depend, in part, on how much one’s friends value oneself relative to others, and thus that a friend’s behavior toward others can influence one’s own outcomes.”
Researchers at Oklahoma State University surveyed 1,183 individuals in student and non-student communities in the US and non-student communities in India to analyze what behaviors they prefer in a same-sex best friend.
Participants were asked to rate how much they would like to see certain behaviors like kindness, trustworthiness, viciousness, indifference, exploitative behavior, similarity, physical proximity, familiarity and impartiality in a conflict in a best friend from a scale of one to seven.
The results suggested that while people generally want friends to be kinder and more trustworthy, they sometimes prefer friends who are “more vicious,” or at the very least, indifferent toward their enemies.
This revealed that many people prefer friends who are kind to them and strangers, but that they’ll forgive unkind behaviors when the vitriol is directed at their adversaries.
People also cared a bit more about how nicely their friends treated them versus how they treated strangers.
The experts said this is because these people behave in ways that “maximize the friendship benefits” by both supporting their friends and undermining their rivals.”
Previous research has shown that “people believe they can be harmed when their enemies benefit and benefit when enemies are harmed.”
Researchers note that this aligns with why most people chose to have friends — for “preferential support.”
Most people look for a ride or die who will choose them over others, help them knock their enemies down and who will also uplift them.
Choosing and maintaining friendships are a vital part of life and have been proven to benefit one’s physical and mental health.
Having just one quality conversation with a bud per day could boost one’s well-being, according to a paper published in SAGE Journals.
The study found that those who engaged in any type of communication throughout their day reported higher qualities of well-being and happiness, especially increased feelings of connection and decreased stress, compared to those who ghosted their friends that day.
So go call your best friend and see how vicious they can get when talking about your ex or horrible boss — it could benefit your friendship and your health, according to science.