One study, for example, tested whether having friends during formative years affects who we become as adults. It compared fifth graders who did have friends with fifth graders who did not on several outcomes in adulthood. The fifth graders with friends were less depressed, more moral, and had higher self-worth as adults. If we were asked, How did you become empathic? More moral? Develop high self-esteem?, for most of us, our answer wouldn’t be friends. Education, self-reflection, therapy, or genes, we might say. We’re not always conscious of the way friendship transforms us, but it still does.
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