By Alexandra McAlpin
“If you don’t really know someone, how can you truly love them?
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All over the world, there are opportunities to engage with others closely through work opportunities, volunteer efforts, friendships, relationships, and schooling. Imagine finding yourself living your day-to-day life with someone you know, but don’t know well. For many, this occurs when roommates are assigned, missionaries go out “two by two,” or a new neighbor moves in next door and starts hosting block parties. But what emerges from these events? Do friendships form? What is it that causes friendships to form between two strangers?
Psychologists Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back coined a phrase that describes “the tendency of individuals to form close relationships with people they repeatedly encounter... the propinquity effect” (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 2021). This theory explains why roommates stay in touch even when college ends, why veterans and missionaries get together after returning home from their fields, and why a teenage girl falls in love with the boy next door. Relationships stem from time spent together.
So often, we look for quick fixes to enhance our lives. Whether it is coming home and watching Tik Tok videos, ordering fast food while in a rush, or using Chat GPT as our employed author for various tasks in our lives – we want to shortcut all we can in order to quickly arrive at our desired outcomes. However, with propinquity, there is a phrase initially said by Ian Fleming, which can become our mantra if we so choose: “nothing propinks like propinquity.” This phrase demonstrates the diligent effort and time required for meaningful relationships to be formed.
It is said that we are a composite of the five people we spend most of our time around. While the science behind this lacks much ground, think for a moment about the five people who you spend the most time with.
Who are they? What are their interests? What causes you to feel comfortable around them?
Chances are, you have many shared qualities with those who you surround yourself with. It is common to become friends with those who share values with us, and who practice the same hobbies. Additionally, personalities are shown to correlate with friendships being formed. Friendliness levels even indicate whether someone will develop a friendship with another individual (Johnson, 1989).
Therefore, it takes intentional efforts to befriend those who we may share fewer traits with. When implemented between two people with different backgrounds, propinquity holds the capacity for us to discover new beauties to life. Through choosing to spend time with those who can teach us about things unfamiliar to us, and open up our minds to new ways of thinking, propinquity can propel us forward into growth zones.
Carol Dweck, a famous psychologist, developed the idea of a “growth mindset,” which, when applied, encourages those who choose to engage in it, to live with an open mind, willing to change (Dweck, 2006). The opposite of this mentality juxtaposed by Dweck is called a “fixed mindset,” describing the choice to suppress thoughts that counter our previously held beliefs (Dweck, 2006).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ
If you are unacquainted with her work, this TED Talk explains the value of adopting a “growth mindset,” which can help in the quest to expand our friendship horizons.
Sometimes, we can find ourselves in an echo chamber of our own thoughts when we are in environments that support more of a “fixed mindset.” When we surround ourselves most often with people who share the same traits such as personality (to the degree this can be similar), race, socioeconomic status, gender, culture, and religion, we may not realize that this could be contributing to a fixed mindset as we lack introduction to new ideas. It is important to note, however, that all people have strengths and qualities which we can grow from, even when these traits are shared. Each person is unique in both their personality, and intelligence, and therefore lessons come from each person we develop relationships with (Aghdaei & Aryan, 2021).
But what happens when we do become close friends with people who are different than us? Research has found that people whose closest friends differed in their gender and race did not prioritize homogeneity of experiences or values, but did prioritize the following traits: “trust and honesty, respect friend as person, there when needed” (Galupo and Gonzalez, 2013). Perhaps these traits of friendship matter even more than someone who reflects our experiences. It is through such friendships that we are enabled to enter new territory for building and cultivating a more experientially rich life. Forgoing the requirement of shared experiences can lead us to interacting more personally with someone who could help us feel things we have not felt, and become someone we did not know we could be.
Additionally, in the journal, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, we learn that friendships across different groups are “associated with more positive intergroup attitudes, including reduced prejudice and increased empathy towards outgroup members” (Davies et al., 2011). What this means is that the benefits of befriending people who share differences in thinking flow into more homogenous friend groups as well – shaping the views of others in positive ways.
The results of propinquity being practiced intentionally could be lifechanging for an individual who feels marginalized, or who is shy and otherwise not one to be befriended. Critical to our identity is the belonging, defined as “a feeling of mutual love and value, and frequent pleasant interactions with people” (Smith 2017, Warren 2024). Such frequency in interaction can cause two people to feel deeply known, and deeply loved.
Therefore, an individual with an outgoing personality reaching out to those who otherwise would not be noticed can be crucial for those who feel otherwise marginalized. Research conducted by the International Journal of Behavioral Development found that, for adolescents, diversity within friendships led to “better psychosocial adjustment, including higher self-esteem and lower depressive symptoms, particularly for adolescents from minority ethnic groups” (Rivas-Drake et al., 2017). When we come together as humans and decide to practice propinquity with all who we are surrounded by, we can experience true belonging.
In biology, we also learn about the strength which comes from diversity. The gut microbiome, when exposed to more foreign entities, develops greater awareness of what is dangerous, and what is actually beneficial to its health and well-being (Belkaid & Hand, 2014). Therefore, it boosts the immune system and results in “lower susceptibility to infections” (Honda & Littman, 2016). Perhaps as we test this for ourselves, we can come to a greater acceptance of what is beneficial to us, in ways we did not previously understand. We can see the world around us with more clarity, and we can see others through a more informed lens. Perhaps biases can fade, and who knows where this will take our paths. It seems that this would strengthen us as human beings.
In summary, increasing our exposure to others allows for us to…
See from newer perspectives
Learn new information
Develop a mindset that invites growth
Build strength and increased awareness of those around us, and ourselves
As you think of those within your life, maybe challenge yourself to befriend the coworker you pass by but do not know as you leave your work each day. Or try volunteering at a new place, where there are people with different experiences. You never know what this will do to transform your life and change your heart. For after all, “nothing propinks like propinquity.”
“Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.”
References
Aghdaei, Roxana & Tabrizi, Aryan. (2021). A review study of how and why people are different. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 9. 1-11.
Belkaid Y, Hand TW. (2014). Role of the microbiota in immunity and inflammation. Cell, 157(1):121-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.03.011. PMID: 24679531; PMCID: PMC4056765.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
Dweck, C. (2014, November). The power of believing that you can improve [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ
Davies, K., Tropp, L. R., Aron, A., Pettigrew, T. F., & Wright, S. C. (2011). Cross-group friendships and intergroup attitudes: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(4), 332-351. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311411103
Gottman, J. (2002). The relationship cure. Three Rivers River Press.
Honda, K., Littman, D. (2016). The microbiota in adaptive immune homeostasis and disease. Nature, 535: 75–84. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18848 (Honda & Littman, 2016).
Johnson, M. A. (1989). Variables associated with friendship in an adult population. The Journal of Social Psychology, 129(3), 379–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1989.9712054
Rivas-Drake, D., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Schaefer, D. R., & Medina, M. (2017). Ethnic-racial identity and friendships in early adolescence. Child Development, 88(3), 710–724. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44250113
Smith, E. E. (2017). The power of meaning: Finding fulfillment in a world obsessed with happiness. Crown Publishers.