Known by the company she keeps: Women's friendship preferences influence interpersonal evaluations

Abstract

The current research examined the factors that impact women's preference for male (vs. female) friends and how these preferences, in turn, impact how women are evaluated by others. Studies 1–2 demonstrated that women who prefer male (vs. female) friends reported greater mating and sexual success, placed less trust in female friends, and held more hostility towards other women. Study 2 also showed that women's distrust of female friends is predicted by greater perceived aggression from female peers, which in turn predicted greater preference for male friends. Studies 3–5 revealed that women (but not men) reported greater distrust of female targets who prefer male (vs. female) friends. Study 5 further found that women's decreased trust in female targets who prefer male (vs. female) friends was predicted by expectations that these targets possess more socially undesirable traits, more hostility towards other women, and greater sexual unrestrictedness. Together, results suggest the relationship between women's friendship preferences and other women's evaluations may be bidirectional. Women's preference for male friends was predicted by perceived aggression from and lack of trust in other women, and other women distrusted and inferred negative traits about women who preferred male friends.