What Dale Carnegie got wrong about making friends.( from Eric Barker's book: Plays well with others*)

What Dale Carnegie got wrong about making friends.( from Eric Barker's book: Plays well with others*)

We don't give friendship enough credit. A 2008 Journal of Socio-Economics study found that while changes in income provide only a minor increase in happiness, more time with friends boosts your smiling to the equivalent of an extra .... a year. Do you have three friends at work? If so, you're 96 percent more likely to say you're happy about your life. Not your job—your life.

What predicts whether you'll be alive one year after a heart attack? Two things: how many friends you have, and whether you smoke. Oxford professor Robin Dunbar says you can eat as much as you like, you can slob about, you can drink as much alcohol as you like. The effect is very modest compared with those other two factors. Now, most of what people know about friendship comes from Dale Carnegie, but Dale Carnegie wrote his book long before the advent of social science research. So does what he said really hold up under the scrutiny of science? Turns out most of it does.

But Carnegie did get one thing wrong.

He said we should try and see things from the other person's perspective. Yet research shows we're terrible at this. Professor Nicholas Epley has found that with strangers, you correctly detect their thoughts and feelings only 20 percent of the time. With close friends you only hit 30 percent, and married couples peak at 35 percent. Whatever you think is going on in your spouse's head, two-thirds of the time, you're wrong. If you want to know what people are thinking, you need to ask them.

More importantly, Carnegie's advice is really only good for the beginning of relationships. To deepen friendships, we need to remember two things Carnegie didn't talk about: time and vulnerability.

Time is crucial when it comes to relationships. Time is always scarce, and giving someone your time shows them that they're someone you care about. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame analyzed over 8 million phone calls and found that touching base in some form every two weeks is a good target to shoot for. Hit that minimum frequency, and friendships are more likely to persist.

Vulnerability—that's opening up, sharing your fears, concerns, and worries. Often we don't like to do this. We don't want to look weak or silly. But the truth is, when we share our fears and concerns, we become more three-dimensional. It shows the other person we trust them because we're talking about things that could make us look bad. Importantly, this is how people really get to know us. Vulnerability is critical, and not being open and vulnerable doesn't just kill friendships—it can also kill you. University of Pennsylvania professor Robert Garfield notes that not opening up prolongs minor illnesses. It increases the likelihood of a first heart attack, and it doubles the chance that heart attack will be lethal.

For bonus points, introduce your friends to each other. Having friendships is great, but having a community is even better. A 2020 study found that we feel the most support from friends when they're connected to one another.

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(*) https://www.google.com/amp/s/nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/plays-well-others-surprising-science-behind-everything-know-relationships-mostly-wrong-bookbite/34590/amp/