Individuals often project their own attitudes, behaviors, or relationship views onto close others. These perceptions may or may not be accurate but they influence relationship judgments. Based on the attraction-similarity hypothesis, three studies examine the role of friendship satisfaction in perceptions of similarity in terms of relationship beliefs, traits, and behaviors among cross-sex friends. Study 1 found that college students perceived their cross-sex friends to be similar to themselves. Interclass correlations indicated that these perceptions reflected a belief in the partner’s similarity to the self rather then being an accurate assessment. Supporting the attraction-similarity hypothesis, Studies 2 and 3 found that greater friendship satisfaction predicted greater perceived friend-self similarity for traits and behaviors. Finally, these perceptions were made in a self-enhancing fashion.
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