{"id":39783,"date":"2019-02-08T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=39783"},"modified":"2019-02-07T13:55:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T21:55:02","slug":"how-many-friends-does-the-average-person-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychology-facts\/how-many-friends-does-average-person-have-0208197","title":{"rendered":"How Many Friends Does the Average Person Have?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Friendship.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-39784 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Friendship.png\" alt=\"How Many Friends Does the Average Person Have?\" width=\"800\" height=\"2000\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Friendship.png 800w, https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Friendship-300x750.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<h2>INFOGRAPHIC TEXT:\u00a0 HOW MANY FRIENDS DOES THE AVERAGE PERSON HAVE?<\/h2>\n<p>According to a 2004 Gallup poll, Americans have an average of 8-9 close <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/friendship\">friends<\/a>. More specifically:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2% have no close friends<\/li>\n<li>14% have 1-2 close friends<\/li>\n<li>39% have 3-5 close friends<\/li>\n<li>18% have 6-9 close friends<\/li>\n<li>27% have 10 or more friends<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, human brains have a limit on how many meaningful relationships they can keep track of. Dunbar says most people can have up to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>5 intimate bonds: spouses, best friends, and so on<\/li>\n<li>15 close friends: people you trust and spend time with regularly<\/li>\n<li>50 friends: people you would invite to a personal event like a wedding or dinner<\/li>\n<li>150 casual friends: people you would invite to a big party<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A recent survey seems to support Dunbar\u2019s theory. Researchers found the average Facebook user<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Has 155 friends on the platform<\/li>\n<li>Only considers 43 contacts to be genuine friends<\/li>\n<li>Would only trust 4 of their Facebook friends in a crisis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Carroll, J. (2004, March 5). Americans satisfied with number of friends, closeness of friendships. <em>Gallup News Service.<\/em> Retrieved from https:\/\/bit.ly\/2xNp05p<\/li>\n<li>Knapton, S. (2016, January 20) Facebook users have 155 friends\u2014but would trust just four in a crisis. <em>The Telegraph.<\/em> Retrieved from https:\/\/bit.ly\/2Kp8Cj4<\/li>\n<li>Konnikova, M. (2014, October 7). The Limits of Friendship. <em>The New Yorker.<\/em> Retrieved from https:\/\/bit.ly\/2hHO4BM<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friendship is an important part of our well-being, but how many friends do people usually have? Is there a maximum number of potential friends we can handle? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,623],"tags":[674],"class_list":["post-39783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","category-issues-treated","tag-friendship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}