Modern-day culture is obsessed with knowledge and information to the extent where everyone in the developed counties consumes more information in a day than people did in decades just a few centuries ago. Among the information that catches our attention every day, many messages may be accepted without the due criticism merely because they seem in line with all preexisting knowledge, are proclaimed as true by people we respect and trust or because they appear ass rather logical to us. However, in many cases, these rationalizations behind accepting certain beliefs and facts lead us to accept faulty truths that do not necessarily stand up to scientific testing. For instance, numerous articles on self-improvement and personal effectiveness proclaim that everyone should choose the people they spend most of the time with very carefully because the person is supposedly an average of the five people he or she associates most with. Although this claim does seem as very plausible, proving it scientifically will be a rather complex and lengthy process that we rely on to evaluate it in our mundane thinking.
Self-improvement articles and tips suggest that every person is an average of the five people he or she spends the most time with. They claim that people tend to pick up attitudes, traits, reaction and behavior patterns from each other. Hence, self-help gurus suggest that if you want to be productive, creative, and successful you surround yourself with people who already like this (Groth, 2012). From the perspective of purely logical reasoning, this claim makes perfect sense. For one, we often see that certain effects represent an average of all forces in play, and thus, the same principle may be applied to people. For two, most people know theoretically and practically that they may be influenced by other people. Combining these two implications results in an a priori conclusion that this claim must be correct. Yet, if one considers its truthfulness from a scientific point of view, it turns out to be not so evident.
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To test a popular claim that one is an average of five people he or she is most affiliated with the scientific method, it is crucial to firstly dissect this statement to arrive at a more precise understanding of it (Richardson, Goodwin, & Vine, 2011). Namely, this statement may relate to a wide array of factors, including one’s economic success, level of happiness, social activity, or personality. To test this claim scientifically, one has to decide what aspect to focus the study’s attention on. Because the articles I have come across that discuss this claim imply that people to communicate a lot tend to resemble each other’s personality and consequently behavior, the research question for the study will focus on key personality traits. Hence, the research question for this study would be: How does frequent communication with certain people affect an individual personality.
To address this research question with a scientific method, there are a few steps that have to be completed. One plausible study design is recruiting a sufficient number of groups of friends, having every participant complete a survey to measure their personality traits and the frequency and closeness of their communication with the people they say to be friends with, and assess whether people who entered the study as friends actually display a resemblance in their personality traits. On the early stages of designing a study, it is required to decide how people’s personality traits should be measured. Here, the Five-factor personality model appears to be a good way to assess participants’ personalities because this is widely accepted approach that has proven to be an effective way to operationalize personalities and there are numerous inventories available that can be readily included into the survey. Hence, the first step of the study will consist of creating the questionnaires to determine participants’ personality traits and the degree of their affiliation with friends. The second step will involve recruiting a sufficient number of groups of friends to participate in the study and having them complete the surveys. On the final step, the obtained measures should be analyzed using a statistical method to determine whether friends really influence the personalities of each other.
Although it is clear that in the process of actually designing this study and thinking through every detail, numerous issues that require careful consideration will arise, there is one serious concern that is already obvious and should be taken into account in the study design. Namely, merely testing whether people who are friends have similar personalities is insufficient because it is highly possible that these similarities are explained not by the influence they have over each other but rather by the fact that people tend to become friends with those who are similar to them. Hence, if the similarity in friends’ personality traits may well be the reason and not the result of friendship. To address this matter, when analyzing the obtained data to determine whether friends resemble each others’ personalities, it is important to take into account how long have they been friends as similarities between relatively recent friends may suggest that they naturally prefer to become friends with similar people.
Overall, the claim about people being an average of the five people they spend the time with appears to be easily confirmed using the a priori method as it is in line with familiar principles of average values as well as our real-life experience. Arriving at the scientific confirmation of this claim, however, is not as easy as it requires building an accurate theoretical model where the relationships between different factors are not as clear as in common sense knowledge, and using this model to gather and test the needed data from a sufficient sample of participants.
- Groth, A. (2012, July 24). You’re The Average Of The Five People You Spend The Most Time With. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rohn-youre-the-average-of-the-five-people-you-spend-the-most-time-with-2012-7.
- Method of Agreeableness to Reason for Fixation of Belief (a Priori Method). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://educology.indiana.edu/methodOfAgreeablenessToReasonPeirce.html.
- Richardson, P., Goodwin, A., & Vine, E. (2011). Research Methods and Design in Psychology. Learning Matters.
