Personality and Individual Diferences 206 (2023) 112120 0191-8869/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. A factor analytic examination of women’s and men’s friendship preferences Jessica D. Ayers a, * , Jaimie Arona Krems b , Athena Aktipis c, d a Department of Psychological Science, Boise State University, United States b Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis (OCEAN), Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, United States c Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, United States d Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, United States A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Friendships Preferences Traits Sex differences ABSTRACT Friendships are valuable relationships that can bestow many benefts. How can humans ensure they receive the maximum benefts with minimal potential costs? One possible solution is to have preferences for traits, expec- tations, and rules in friendship. This could, for example, help people pursue benefcial friendships and jettison costly friendships. Previous research robustly documented that such preferences for traits, expectations, and rules exist, though they are often combined, and indicates that these preferences may be sex-specifc. Across two studies (N = 853), our factor analyses documented that preferences for desired traits in friendship are organized into two broad categories with women rating intrinsic traits as more important in their friendship compared to men’s ratings. Similarly, factor analyses showed that preferences for rules in friendship are organized into four broad categories with women rating all rule categories as more important in their friendships compared to men’s ratings. Friendships – the medium- to long-term cooperative relationships between unrelated and romantically-uninvolved individuals (DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009; Perlman et al., 2015) – are considered universal aspects of human social life (e.g., Hruschka, 2010). Friendships are thought to provide benefts central to health, happiness, and well-being (Dunbar, 2018; Fehr, 1996; Hruschka, 2010; Perlman et al., 2015). For example, evolutionary researchers have documented that friendships provide support during conficts (DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009, 2013), physical protection (Bleske-Rechek & Buss, 2001; Campbell, 1999; Lewis et al., 2011; Smuts, 1985), support in times of need (Aktipis et al., 2011, 2016; Gurven & Hill, 2009; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996; van der Horst & Coff´ e, 2012), cooperation through interdependence (Aktipis et al., 2018; Ayers et al., 2022), help with childcare (Hrdy, 2007), access to potential romantic partners (Bleske-Rechek et al., 2012; Mogilski & Wade, 2013), and help mitigating interpersonal confict in romantic relationships (Keneski et al., 2018). Given the benefts of friendship, it would seem like individuals should collect as many friends as possible. But friendships require time and resources to initiate, develop, and maintain. Because the time required for this is inelastic, people have limits on the number of friendships one can actively maintain (Dunbar, 2018; Hill & Dunbar, 2003). For example, it takes 50 h to develop a casual friendship, 90 h to become “true” friends, and roughly 200 h to become close friends (Hall, 2018). The time spent cultivating friendships fosters higher quality friendships (Duck et al., 1991), but it also necessarily limits the time that can be invested in pursuing other goals. To minimize potential tradeoffs, some researchers have proposed that individuals use friendship expec- tations (e.g., friendship schemas) to aid in the process of developing friendships with high-quality partners (Felmlee et al., 2012; Hall, 2011, 2012; see also Krems & Conroy-Bean, 2020). In addition to the limited time and resources that prevent us from cultivating as many friendships as possible, individual differences such as age and sex infuence which people we aim to befriend. For example, women’s friendships are generally described as being less robust to turbulence (Benenson, 2014; Benenson et al., 2009) but more emotionally close (Benenson et al., 1997; David-Barrett et al., 2015; Kon & Losenkov, 1978; Wright, 1982) compared to men’s friendships, though this sex difference is believed to decrease with age (Fox et al., 1985). Researchers have also suggested that such individual differences lead to sex differences in the traits men and women prioritize in friends (Hall, 2011; Ein-Dor et al., 2015; Pham et al., 2014; Vigil, 2007; Wil- liams et al., 2022), the rules we want our friends to follow (Felmlee et al., 2012; Hall, 2011), and the importance of friends across the life- span (Blieszner et al., 2019; Felmlee & Muraco, 2009; Miche et al., * Corresponding author at: Department of Psychological Science, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725, United States. E-mail address: jessicaayers@boisestate.edu (J.D. Ayers). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112120 Received 21 November 2022; Received in revised form 2 February 2023; Accepted 3 February 2023