Different cultures may see friendship differently · 5:21am Sep 29th, 2021
An interesting article about friendship in PsyPost.org: Study explores cross-cultural differences in the mental representations of friendship among Russians and Canadians
Doucerain and her colleagues tested an approach to exploring cross-cultural differences in the psychological representations of friendship using techniques informed by linguistics and anthropology. They tested their approach over a series of studies among two samples of Russians and Canadians.
The Mane 6 demonstrates some of the Russian concepts of friendship, but not all.
In a final study, the researchers used participants’ understanding of friendship to reliably predict their country of origin. They found that Russian respondents were more likely to endorse the idea that friends tend to belong to the same gender, desire frequent interaction with each other, fully trust one another, and can disclose things to each other without fearing negative consequences. Canadians, on the other hand, were more likely to feel that friends tend to have highly similar life circumstances and that having friends is a reflection of a person’s social skills.
Like the Russians in the study, the Mane 6 all belong to the same gender, desire frequent interaction with each other, and do trust each other (especially in dangerous situations).
But, even late in the series, they can’t always disclose things to each other without fearing negative consequences. A couple of examples include Rainbow’s unwillingness to tell Pinkie the truth in “Secrets and Pies” in season seven and Twilight and Pinkie’s communication issues in “A Trivial Pursuit" in season nine.
On the other hand, MLP doesn’t go out of its way to endorse the Canadian expression of friendship. The Mane 6 have highly divergent life circumstances. And Twilight, “The Princess of Friendship”, had particularly weak social skills early in the series, but made up for it with a caring heart.
The findings in the article could make an interesting conflict in a story. Perhaps Twilight could have to learn about the different concepts of friendship held by various cultures in and around Equestria.
Do you have any story recommendations on the site that demonstrate differing concepts of friendship?
