Friendship making orientation as indexed by preferences for wide networks and intimacy with many friends: structure and validity of a new construct

Friendships help people achieve many fundamental adaptive functions, such as forming coalitions and successful alloparenting. As such, one might theorize that humans are designed to seek out and maintain as many friendships as possible. However, with time and energy as finite resources, humans face a unique challenge in determining the number of friendships they can sustain - do they prioritize maximizing friendship quantity (potentially at the expense of investment in each friend, thus compromising friendship quality), or do they prioritize friendship quality (potentially at the expense of friendship quantity)? Here, we introduce the novel concept of friendship making orientation – a stable individual difference in motivation towards maximizing friendship quantity – and develop a tool for measuring this trait. Across 5 studies (NTotal = 5,707), we created and confirmed the Friendship Making Orientation Scale’s factor structure, finding that the scale is composed of two factors: preference for a wide friendship network and desire for intimacy with many friends. We further demonstrate strong test-retest reliability, as well as construct and discriminant validity. Critically, we demonstrate that the scale achieves measurement invariance across three geographically diverse countries (i.e., Egypt, the Philippines, and Brazil), and is associated with friend-seeking motivation and behaviors over and above relevant controls. Friendship Making Orientation offers a novel method for assessing an unexplored aspect of friendships and provides a crucial tool for understanding this valued relationship.