Honors Projects

Abstract

People are put into “the friend zone” when they want to pursue a romantic relationship with a friend but find that their friend wants only a platonic relationship. With this research I (a) estimated the frequencies of heterosexual college students' having put an opposite-sex friend into the friend zone and having been put into the friend zone by an opposite-sex friend, (b) examined the emotions associated with these friend-zone experiences, and (c) explored college students' perceptions of characters navigating a friend-zone experience as depicted in two short video clips. Discussion focuses on results concerning the ubiquity of friend-zone experiences, the emotions associated with rejecting and being rejected by a friend, and identification with and interpretation of fictional characters.

First Advisor

Anne K. Gordon

First Advisor Department

Psychology

Second Advisor

Jeremy Wallach

Second Advisor Department

Popular Culture

Publication Date

Spring 2014

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