WEBVTT - Your Work Friends Are Faking It 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.360 What you're listening to is me, Sam Grobart and Francesca 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.560 at karaoke a few weeks ago, and it's the sweet 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:26.560 sound of us becoming true friends. Can work friendships really last? Though? 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:45.920 This is game plan HIIII Hi. I'm Rebecca Greenfield and 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.080 I'm Francesco Leady And this week we're talking about work friends. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.720 If that's even a thing, Well, it felt like a 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.160 thing when we were all doing karaoke. Yeah, karaoke is 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.280 such a fun work friend activity. It's the classic workplace 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.000 bonding exercise, like it's to work specific ritual. I feel like, 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.040 I mean, I would do karaoke with anybody, but it's 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.120 especially common among work people because you have to drink 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.720 a little bit in order to feel comfortable enough. And 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.040 then you're becoming so vulnerable by putting yourself out there 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:15.680 and singing in front of people, and you can't help 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.039 but be friends at the end. Right, And but we 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.759 say that, and yet our dear friend Sam Robert left 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.480 for another job sometime back, and I don't know, are 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.680 we really friends now that he's in another job? Yeah, 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.319 I felt like we were friends when he left, But 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.160 now that it's been a few weeks. Who knows work 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.600 friendships are are fraught like that. Well, there's a there's 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.039 a reason for it. Would you like to know what 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.800 that is? Yes, there's something called the proximity principle, which 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.000 suggests that basically, you are most likely to be close 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.520 with people who are physically near you. So like somebody 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.360 who sits next to you at work, is there's a 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.760 higher likelihood that you'll become friends with them than even 0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:59.880 somebody who sits like on another floor at your job. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.520 And certainly, and that that's a bigger predictor of friendships 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.680 than anything else, like even how much you have in 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.800 common with somebody, or you know, some other bonding factor 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.560 in your relationship. I found that to be very true 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.280 on a very micro level here at Bloomberg because we 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.720 just moved desks and I was close to the person 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.320 I was sitting next to, and now it's like we 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.760 barely even work together. Yeah, I've had that experience. Their 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.720 relationships have of mine have fundamentally changed after that person 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.400 and me no longer sitting together. It's really sad, I know. 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.119 So it's like it's also sad because it's like, God, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:36.920 you thought you were friends with this person, like every 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.920 day you, you went for your coffee break together and 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.760 you share little jokes about things you overheard, and it 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.480 felt like this great friendship and then it's just gone, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.600 Like as soon as you don't have the super easy 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.200 convenience of turning and talking to that person whenever you 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.760 feel like it, there's like nothing there. It's not only 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.079 that you're thrown into this box with people that you 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.520 might not ever be friends with, but also work relationships 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:05.200 are complicated because we work with these people a lot, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:06.920 and you might have a lot and come with them 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.640 because you are interested in the same professional things, but 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.280 you also need to be calculating and you want to 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.080 get something out of them, and or you might be 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.960 competitive with them. So it's this weird relationship that you 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.079 have with It's easy to mistake work friendships for real friendships, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.560 or it's easy to treat them like you with other 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.919 kinds of friendships in your life. But there's a whole 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.240 other layer to it, right, Yeah, there is research showing 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:36.320 that people are more apt to treat their personal acquaintances 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.680 better than their close colleagues. So in the study, they 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.440 had people imagine that a personal acquaintance took them out 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.040 for dinner and then imagine that a work friend took 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.400 them out for dinner and the people were more likely 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.200 to reciprocate with the personal acquaintance. That's crazy. So like, 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.960 even in this thought experiment, like who do we become 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.640 when we're at work? I don't think that I'm like 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.320 this cold hearted person, But apparently, like when we think 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.600 about our work friends, were just not treating them the 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.840 same way we with the people in our lives. I 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:12.280 think it's just as complicated, these complicated feelings we have. UM, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.000 which is a phenomenon known as the front of me 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.680 for enemy. It sounds like such a new term. Oh, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.640 but there's a history. I going into the history of 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.360 the words. Apparently it first showed up back in nine 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.080 three with what the headline of a story that I love, 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.200 how's about calling the Russians are frenemies? And for you 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.560 listeners out there, it's housed with a Z and front 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.760 of me is spelled f R I e N instead 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.000 of f R E N, which is the modern spelling. Okay, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:45.680 I love the people were spelling things with a Z 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.599 in that sounds like a headline from now that could 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.839 be a I don't know, UM. So it kind of 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.480 proves that our relationships have always been pretty complicated. I 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.799 think there's been room to talk about these complicated, nuanced 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.599 friend ships, but they certainly do seem very prevalent in 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.800 the office, and it makes you wonder if everybody in 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.200 the office who you think is your real friend is 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.719 actually a friend of me. And I mean everything we've 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.040 just talked about suggests that, yes. But our guest today 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.200 studies working relationships and she's found that it's a lot 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:21.000 more complicated than that, and even that these fraud relationships 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:33.880 might be good for us. Our guest today is Jessica Methought. 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.200 She's an assistant professor of Human Resource Management at Rutgers, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.720 where she studies work relationships. Thanks for coming on, Thank 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.279 you for having me. So you study all types of friendships, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.680 Can you break down the different kinds of relationships we 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.720 have at work? Yeah? Absolutely. We started to look at 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.240 the research that is really really prevalent on positive and 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.960 negative relationships, and they tended to pit them against each 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.159 other to say that they were on opposite ends of 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.880 a continuum that a relationship is either positive or negative. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.520 And we started to kind of reflect on this and 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.360 think about relationships that didn't necessarily fall into either one 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.960 of those buckets for us, either at work or at home. 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.080 And so we did a little bit of legwork and 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.000 we started to look at any of the work that's 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.800 been done that doesn't clearly like label these relationships and 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.599 put them into the positive or negative buckets. And we 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.719 found research on things like sibling rivalry and ways that 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.599 people feel about their in laws, and so these started 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.040 to make us think that we don't necessarily only feel 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.520 positively or negatively, but we could really feel both. We 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:43.280 could feel ambivalently. Where will simultaneously feel both strongly positively 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.520 and strongly negatively about someone that we work with, And 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.479 so we thought that that was a really interesting type 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.240 of relationship to take a look at. So that's what 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:57.880 we might call fre enemies, yeah, exactly, And so that 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.520 tends to be the label that's put on and when 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.080 people want to talk about them. It's something that really 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.719 resonates with people. We understand and can reflect on what 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.080 a freenem me means at work in particular. So these 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.920 are people who you know, we're really close with and 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.800 we care a lot about and we feel benevolently towards 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.480 and we know they care a lot about us. But 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.320 say we go up for the same promotion and they're 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.400 making headway on us, there's this notion or this feeling 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.080 of jealousy that we just can't table. In your research, 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.960 you also talk about what you call in different relationships. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.000 Can you explain what that means? So in different relationships 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.440 really are just acquaintances. So these are people that we 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.360 run into every day, that we wave too, that we 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.200 nod to in the hallway, and we may even know 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.120 their names, and so they make a small mark on 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.360 us on a day to day basis, but if we 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.280 never saw them again, we might not necessarily, you know, 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.120 feel too broken up about it. These were also relationships 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.400 that we just wanted to delve a little bit more 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.840 deeply into because we we noticed that they are a 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.200 specially common Yeah, I definitely have a lot of those. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.840 I can think of their names first time only at 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.080 the top of my head. But you found that they 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.120 do have an impact on our lives, right, yes. And 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.160 so you know, as we started combing through some of 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.520 the research that touches on this notion of in different relationships, 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.040 you know, we came across research on what's called weak 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.040 ties in social networks. And so this is kind of 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.880 the most common way to think about in different relationships, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.360 and from that perspective are weak ties helps connect us 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.360 to unique and non redundant information. So if these individuals 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.600 are not part of our core social network, the people 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.119 in our core network tend to have the same information. 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.040 We're all talking to each other, we all share the 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.040 same information with each other. If we're connected to someone 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.760 who's not really embedded in that network, they have different 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.000 perspectives and different pieces of information that can help us 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.200 with our work or give us a new way to 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.200 reflect on something that we're doing that we might not 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.320 necessarily have reached if we just focused on the people 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.600 in our core network. It's like get out of your 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.880 media bubble, right exactly, and you start to kind of 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.200 talk to people and so, you know, you ask them 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.560 about their lives and their experiences or just advice that 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.440 they would give you, and it gives you a different 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.800 way or a new perspective to think about things. And 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:15.240 so that's one of the ways that we saw this 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.280 really being a benefit these relationships. And you can probably 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.400 also learn more about even your job or your office 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.280 or how your office works. Like the guy who was 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.320 installing at my colleague standing desk. The other day, I 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.600 was talking to him and learned all about our whole 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.600 office policy on standing desk, which is very complicated. Yeah, 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.240 and none of none of my more intimate colleagues could 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.160 explain it to me. Well, right, And so they give 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.200 us kind of this new information and it might not 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.600 be the most pressing information, but it could be. And 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.960 so it helps us, you know, do our jobs in 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.000 a way that we wouldn't necessarily have thought about. So 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.800 there's some research that calls them consequential strangers, So we 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.400 consider them strangers, but they do mean something to us. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.880 They have some consequence in our daily lives, and they 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.320 also you were saying, they affect our our day to 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.160 day Yeah, absolutely, And so this is something else that 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.760 kind of came out of our research and our review 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.440 of the research that's been done, which is, even if 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.040 we don't develop or never develop really strong or positive 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.080 relationships with these people, they give us a sense of embeddedness. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.920 They really help contribute to the culture of the work. 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.640 They make us feel like we have connections. And the 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.640 thing about high quality, strong friendships, strong relationships is that 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.160 they can actually be pretty draining. They take a lot 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.320 of effort, and so these acquaintances they don't take much 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.240 effort for us to continue to maintain, and so they're 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.280 very helpful in making us feel positively. They give us 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.520 a positive emotion. Someone waves and says hi to you. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.240 It makes you feel good, right, You feel connected to 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.520 the people at work. But it doesn't take your attention 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:49.440 away from the work that you're doing. It doesn't create 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.240 an interruption, it doesn't cause you to have to repay 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.600 someone for something that they gave back to you. And 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.440 so they're really low maintenance relationships. Hearing your talk about 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.760 friendships and how much energy they take, I can definitely 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.680 definitely relate to that, and I'm sure freenemies take a 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.520 particularly large amount of energy. Have you found that there 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.040 are any benefits? Are? Like, what are the effects of 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.760 phenemies at work? When we look at the effects of 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.360 frenemies outside of the workplace, they tend to seem really harmful, 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.320 really detrimental. So if these are you know, our friends 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.600 who we share some kind of volunteer activity or some 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.120 other activity that we're engaging in with them outside of work, 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.600 these tend to just drain us so much, right, and 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.160 so we want to potentially just end those relationships. It's 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.440 easier to end relationships outside of work. The unique thing 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.640 about freenemies in the workplaces that you can't necessarily just 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.040 dissolve them, right, These are people that you work with, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.440 and so there's really this this complication associated with frenemies 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.160 in the workplace that doesn't translate to this type of 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:01.200 relationship at home. And so while they're are some detriments, 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.320 what we see is that when there's this sense of ambivalence, 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:10.320 when there's this coexisting positive and negative set of emotions 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.959 that exist in a relationship, it actually heightens our activation. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.360 So it makes us more attuned to what's going on 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.240 in the workplace. And so what that leads to is 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:26.840 better opportunities for learning, more vigilance, more creativity, and so 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.000 it actually helps with creative thinking and the ability to 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.280 do our jobs better. It also leads us to think 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.880 a lot more deeply about, say, the information that this 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.280 individual is providing us with. We don't just take it 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.319 at surface value and assume that it's okay. We really 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.280 work through is this true, and so kind of give 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.920 a deeper sense of commitment to and time to the 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.600 information that they're providing to us because it might not 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.400 necessarily be accurate. We don't know if they're trying to 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.440 help us or trying to hurt us. That does sound 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.440 really mentally exhausting, is and that's the harmful aspect of 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.079 it is that it's so they are so de energizing 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.040 inside of work or outside of work, they are draining. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.720 They take so much time and energy. And because you 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.840 constantly have to be in this heightened state of vigilance, 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.760 right you're constantly on your toes thinking what is this 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.400 person going to do? I can't necessarily predict what they're 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.000 trying to do or what their goal is. Now, there 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.480 are some people who are neither friends nor frenemies right there, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.480 just they're just genuinely people you don't like. It works, right, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.720 How do those relationships affect you compared to freenemies? And 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.120 that's a really fascinating question, something that we found really 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.040 interesting because if we just take these relationships at face value, 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.280 thinking that they're either positive or negative, then we assume 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.439 that negative relationships are the worst kind of relationship. Right, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.640 These are harmful. But we know what to expect from 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.560 people we dislike, right, or from people who we don't 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.839 interact well with or who don't help us with our 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.480 work and we know are trying to sabotage us. So 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.560 the fact that we can, our expectations are set. It's 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.640 actually easier to deal with negative relationships. We know we 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.760 want to avoid them, right the goal in that interaction 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.200 is avoidance. But when we have an ambivalent relationship, we're 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.400 pulled in these two different directions. We've got mixed feelings 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.800 about them, and that sense of a mixed feelings of 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:24.560 this tension is much more detrimental than purely negative relationships. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.640 It's increasingly draining, and you don't necessarily want to simply 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.120 avoid them. It's this kind of contradicting approach and avoid tendency, 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.680 and so you have different interactions with them day to day, 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.120 and it's really harmful over the longer term. But you 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.760 can't necessarily avoid your enemies are nemasies know you know, 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.360 and and definitely even if they are purely enemies, purely 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.400 negative relationships, you can try your best to try to 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:52.560 avoid them. If you have to work directly with them, 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.440 that's going to be really harmful, but you might find 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.840 out something you like about them, So you might find 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.360 even if you don't like them as a person, or 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.800 you have very different values that you actually work well together, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.400 But that might turn it into an ambivalent relationship even 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:09.800 more when you have to when you when you can't 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.240 avoid your enemies, they end up just turning into your friend, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.120 and then you have to spend so much more mental 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.760 inner jus. Yes, exactly, And so I think that's something 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.680 that managers really need to think about and consider when 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.000 they're trying to, um say, resolve conflicts. When they're forcing 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.520 people who don't necessarily like each other to work together, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.240 thinking that's going to help them overcome this issue, it 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.360 might be creating something that's even worse. So in talking 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.000 about freenemies, I couldn't help but think about our current 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.280 political administration, and it seems like Paul Ryan and President 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.920 Donald Trump might be freenemies at this point because you know, 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.320 Paul Ryan didn't endorse him, and now they have to 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.840 work very close together and you see this tension and 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.360 play out. Is it possible that that friend of the 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.080 ship um might be good for their creativity together? Well, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.600 you know, I think it did lead us to start 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.560 to see some ways that they were trying to work together, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.320 even if it was superficial, But I'm not necessarily sure 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.840 they're actually frenemies. I think it might be putting on 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.720 a show. I'm not entirely sure that Paul Ryan actually 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.200 likes Donald Trump. That's just my personal opinion. But I 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.440 do think that they are trying to work together. I 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.640 do think they see the potential for their being able 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:23.400 to collaborate and try to meet the goals of their party. Um. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.800 But I'm not necessarily sure that that actually falls into 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.280 this category of ambivalence or frenemies, because it's this true 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.040 positivity and negativity that are coexisting, and it's not necessarily 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.280 just trying to make something work. But that could fall 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.560 into that category potentially. You know, I think that, like 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.240 you mentioned, in this political landscape, were probably starting to 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.760 see fenemies become a lot more common. So at work, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.240 these are you know, individuals who you felt like you 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.720 were friends with, who you interacted with really well, you 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.640 support each other, and then you potentially find out, even 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.840 though you respect them as a professional and as someone 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.919 who's supported you at work, that maybe they support a 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.400 political candidate that you just can't back. That there's no 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.160 way that you could support this individual, and you start 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.439 to see that your core values really differ, And so 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.080 I think that we probably are starting to see the 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.080 incidents of these freenemies on the rise in this landscape 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.600 where there's so much divisiveness, where people are starting to 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.119 find out things about each other where that they wouldn't 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.040 necessarily have found about found out about otherwise, and it 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.959 creates these complicated relationships. When I have discovered an unexpected 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.160 political opinion from somebody that I had assumed thought otherwise, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.679 it almost feels like a personal betrayal, even though they 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.639 didn't do anything to me. They just had an opinion 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.600 I didn't know about and nothing changed. They had that 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.400 opinion before when you liked them. So yeah, I'm also wondering, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.520 have you found that work relationships or the research on it, 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.679 can be gendered or changes depending on the gender of 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.160 the two people involved. UM So when we look at 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.879 friendships between enders, right, so a lot of times we 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.080 think about friendships being between individuals of the same gender, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:10.600 and so the effects are gendered. When supervisors are evaluating 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.200 to women who are friends, they tend to get more 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.280 negative performance evaluations than two men because women tend to 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.800 be seen as social butterflies, and so that UM that 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.720 interaction tends to be seen as non work related, even 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.840 if that's not necessarily true, and so we could see 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.119 that effect occurring, but we could use a lot more 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.720 research on it to kind of nail down whether that's 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.000 actually happening. And then one of the other complicating issues 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.760 is cross gendered friendships. So when a man and a 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.360 woman are close friends, then what kind of complication does 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.240 that create? And so it takes a lot of energy 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.760 to manage that kind of relationship, to portray it and 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.360 to signal to others that it is purely a friendship. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.040 And so there's research on work spouses which is really interesting. 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:56.840 You know, I have this person who's really close to 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.800 me at work, but you know, I have my my 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.440 personal life and my spouse at home, and that starts 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.680 to get a little complicated as well. Well. That's playing 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:06.600 out in the political sphere right too. We have the 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.480 vice president saying that he wouldn't privately go out to 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.520 dinner with a woman, which suggests that there are still 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.119 these widely held beliefs among some people that women and 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:23.080 men can't have just a neutral relationship. Absolutely, and I 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.439 think that that continues, right So this is something that 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.600 even when we see it unfold in the workplace, people 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.560 start to gossip about it. Right, even if it is neutral, 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.600 it starts to garner gossip and people start to assume 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.360 that things are happening when two individuals go to lunch 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:39.399 every day with each other or they go to happy 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.600 hour with each other, and so we definitely need to 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.639 be cognizant of the impression that that's giving as well. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.960 One final question that we're trying to tackle is do 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:52.159 you think that work friendships are real friendships? So in 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.560 my research, what we've found is that we can ask 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.440 this question quite differently. And so there's been some really 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.680 great research which by Gallup where they ask a question 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.640 do you have a best friend at work? And so 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.959 they'd actually started asking that question by saying do you 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.320 have a friend at work? But the problem is is 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.520 that people say that everyone at work is their friends. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.120 They have a very loose definition of what friendship means. 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:20.760 But when you ask someone if they have a best 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.480 friend at work, it's very easy for them to make 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.320 that distinction. They know if someone is their best friend 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.639 or a positive acquaintance or just a friendly relation. And 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.160 so what we tend to see is that people report 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.720 between one and three best friends at work, and I 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.640 think this is actually true. So even if they start 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.560 off as just a work friend, where this relationship is 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.120 purely in the work domain, you're spending so much time 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.800 with your work colleagues, and it's inevitable that this is 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.600 going to kind of bleed into or blur into your 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.000 non work life. You start to go out to happy 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.000 hour with them when you need to vent about something, 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.080 You introduce them to your spouse or your partner, and 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.159 the more you get to know about each other and 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.439 the more personal information you disclose to each other, the 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.960 more your work and your life domains start to blend together, 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.200 and the closer you become where this person really does 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:17.560 become a very close personal friend, not necessarily just a 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:24.240 work friend. So it's possible. Absolutely, Well, thank you so 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.119 much for coming and talking to us. This was great. 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:32.720 Thank you so much for having me so. Jessica says 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.480 that work friendships become real friendships when they crossed the 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:38.960 line outside of work, and that happens over time when 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.119 you invite people for drinks and then they get to 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:45.639 know your spouse or partner, and that's definitely been my experience. Yeah, 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.480 your lives sort of slowly over time move away from 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:52.359 just having work in common to having other things in 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.040 common as well. But I definitely have friends that I 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.600 grew closer with them after we stopped working together, after 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.439