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Surprising Science

What Sets Your Friends Off?

Two psychology researchers at Wilfrid Laurier University say they have come up with a simple test that reveals whether two friends will have a tempestuous relatoinship or not.
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In researching how friends will get along with each other, scientists asked individuals if they could list their friends’ triggers, i.e. what makes them angry. “One example was the word ‘skepticism’ which was described as when someone is overly disbelieving of information that he/she receives, when he/she questions things that are generally accepted, or when he/she is very hard to convince of something. The list also included gullibility, social timidity, social boldness, perfectionism, obliviousness and several dozen other possible triggers. For each behavior, each respondent answered a question about how much this triggers them and how much it triggers their friend.”

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