Do Birds of a Feather Prefer to Flock Together?

I’ll admit it. I was a nerd in elementary school.

I don’t mean that I was smarter than the other kids. I mean that my primary social crowd was “the nerds.”

And—no—peer crowd labels like “the nerds,” “the jocks,” and “the populars” aren’t made-up constructs reserved for catty teen movies. Although labels and categories can change through generations (Crabbe and colleagues, 2021), peer crowds exist. They are especially prominent in adolescence and can negatively influence teens in lower-status social crowds.

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For example, Helms and colleagues (2014) found that although teens in higher-status social crowds (populars and jocks) did not significantly differ in most risky behaviors compared with those in lower-status social crowds (brains and burnouts), teens who assumed high-status peers engaged in substance use showed steeper increases in their own substance use from grades nine to eleven.

Even adults are identified by specific attributes that are associated with different levels of status. Adults looking for romantic partners tend to prioritize physical attractiveness or earning potential. They want these ideals to be present in their future mates—or at least they say they do. Eastwick and Finkel (2008) studied romantic partners before and after speed dating. Before speed dating started, participants tended to identify physical attractiveness and earning prospects as attributes they’d look for in a mate. But these preferences, identified at the beginning of the speed dating event, failed to predict the characteristics of the people they ended up with one month later.

Did I prefer to be friends with the nerds? Honestly, no.

But since we’re all friends here, I’ll also admit to lying awake in bed past my bedtime—praying that I could one day infiltrate the popular group. Does this sound desperate? Maybe. Did my wish come true? Sadly, no. But guess what? I was far from being the only one who thought that way, apparently.

Research focusing on similarity in friendships and romantic relationships has made three things apparent:

1. Our friends are similar to us
2. We become even more similar to our friends over time
3. Similarity contributes to stability while dissimilarity leads to dissolution (friendships ending; Laursen, 2017)

Clearly, there is truth to the saying, “birds of a feather flock together.” We end up with similar others.

But is this because we actively choose friends who are similar to us? If we were asked whom we really, genuinely, actually wanted to befriend, whom would we choose?

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There are two opposing hypotheses to address this question (Sijtsema and colleagues, 2010): The homophily-selection hypothesis assumes that we end up befriending similar others because we actively seek out similar people as friends. Conversely, the default-selection hypothesis posits that people tend to reach up when it comes to friendship, but end up with similar others by default. They aim to befriend someone who is “better” than they are—someone who has more desirable attributes than they do—someone who is of higher status. Regardless, they end up with someone who resembles them in these attributes.

Which is it? Do we seek out similar others as friends, or do we want something different?

This question inspired my coauthored research paper, recently published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Sherrod, Selover, Kahn, Kaniusonyte, and Laursen, 2026). Two longitudinal studies included a total of 725 children aged 10-14 living in the U.S. or Lithuania. We asked children to nominate and rank their friends and their desired friends (whom they would like to befriend).

Children were considered friends when nominations were reciprocal. For example, if you chose Betty as your friend and Betty chose you too, that would be a reciprocal friendship. Desired friendship was measured by asking children whom they would want as friends (someone who isn’t already one of their friends).

Children also nominated classmates on academic achievement, attractiveness, athleticism, fun, popularity, and unpopularity. First, we found that only about 3 to 13 percent of desired friends became actual (reciprocal) friends by the end of the school year. Therefore, most children did not end up becoming friends with the classmates they wanted to befriend.

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We also found that children nominated as desired friends tended to have higher status and more favorable attributes (higher scores on popularity, fun, athleticism, attractiveness, and academic achievement) than children who were not picked as desired friends. Moreover, when we compared desired friends to their nominators (the children who picked them), desired friends scored higher on ideal attributes. Children were significantly more similar to their reciprocal friends than they were to their desired friends.

What does this mean for us?

Our findings, along with earlier research on friendship and dating, suggest that although birds of a feather flock together, they seem to prefer different company (at least, at the start). If this feels deflating to you, well, welcome to reality.

I, for one, felt validated in my own relationship experiences when these research findings came to light. When taking a step back, the default-selection hypothesis makes a whole lot of sense evolutionarily. Of course, we reach for higher-value targets. And, of course, we usually end up with similar others.

Consider social exchange theory, which posits that relationships form, last, or end because humans engage in a continuous cost-benefit analysis. At first, we want the shiny, bright fruit that is out of reach, but once we recognize that we are giving more than we are receiving, we reach for (and appreciate) the fruit at eye level. Arguably, it is better to reach for the higher-hanging fruit first, just in case (you may end up in that 3 to 13 percent based on our study).

It is also adaptive to be somewhat delusional in our own self-perceptions. Research focusing on depression shows that happier people tend to overestimate their abilities and the probability of positive outcomes. Conversely, people who are moderately depressed tend to view the world and themselves more realistically. This has been called “depressive realism” (Garrett and colleagues, 2014).

The moral of the story is this: It may help us to be slightly delusional in our optimism. Go for it. Reach for the stars. Take a shot at that relationship. At the same time, if the relationship partners you end up with are different from what you hoped for—you’re in good company—and are only human after all.