Could We Think About Friendship Relationships Without Emotions? The Other-Oriented Emotions

Findings in specific literature to describe the main elements of friendship

Remember that the type of friendship we are starting from is commonly known as “deep or close friendship”. Its most important features are described in the character friendship from Nicomachean Ethics , but there are other aspects included as well that correspond to a more modern understanding of friendship. This occurs with the accentuation of friendship as a freely chosen bond or with the fact that it is based on the personality of the individual, in the identity of each person (Montaigne, 2007).

The richness of friendship relationships and the intention to offer educators and psychologists help to intervene in the development of friendship by providing conceptual elements, requires presenting it in the most complete way possible, although it must be limited to the space available. For this, we will follow a description of friendship according to relevant literature.

The basic definition of a genuine friend is that he/she is someone who loves or likes another person for the sake of that other person. Aristotle writes about this that “those who wish good things for their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally” (trad. 1994, p. 125 [1156b9–11]).

From there, the approach shows that friendship is, first, a type of love. Unlike others such as filiation or maternity-paternity, it is a free love, in the double sense that a) it assumes mutual choice and b) it is a disinterested and unconditional bond. This means that it is a relationship that seeks friends for themselves; it allows them to be themselves, knowing that they will be accepted just the way they are. This unconditional support and gratuity characteristic of friendship results in the affirmation of the person, which in the psychological area represents a reinforcement of self-esteem, a decrease in personal vulnerability, and a stimulus for growth (Shimizu, Nakashima, & Morinaga, 2018).

The friend is frequently described as “another self”, which shows that friendship alludes to a time of selfhood and otherness; that is to say, the friend is another like myself , and at the same time, is another than myself. This understanding of a friend as another than myself involves mutual knowledge, acceptance and respect. From an experiential psychological approach, recognizing in the friend “another self” requires first to be friends with yourself, enough self-esteem (Santos & Bass, 2017); and, when that does not happen, unhealthy friendships may occur, or vices may appear in that friendship such as possessiveness. In respect to the relationship, perception of the friend as “another self” results in attitudes of mutual understanding, sympathy, healthy complicity and search for mutual company.

Unlike eros , friendship is not an exclusive love. Lewis writes that “number two, far from being the number required for friendship is not even the best” (2000, p. 73), because nobody is so complete as to be able to show from their friends all of the richness they possess. In this way, in friendship, sharing is not dividing but adding. It is precisely because the presence of a new friend favors everybody’s friendship, it is the least jealous of all loves and a circle of good friends wishes to add more members to it (Lewis, 2000).

As Laín Entralgo (1986) stated, friendship includes three elements. First, it is a love of benevolence, which means that he/she wants the good of the friend and seeks it for him/her (beneficence). Moreover, together with benevolence and beneficence, friendship involves confidence, which is the communication between friends of that which is intimate and personal.

Indeed, friendship is based on sharing and that is its origin. However, what is shared specifically is their own privacy: that which is the most confidential of each and which cannot be known if it is not shown. Sharing what is private is exactly what differentiates the partner from the friend and because the richest way that a person has to express him/herself is using language, conversation is essential in every true friendship (Little, 2000). This dialogical exchange is characteristic of friends and leads to mutual knowledge, reciprocal admiration and affective and effective union between them.

Trust is a necessary requirement to share privacy and one of its characteristics is that it cannot be improvised or forced. This is one of the reasons why friendship requires time and shared life because even when the desire for friendship arises fast (Aristotle, trad. 1994), the relationship itself requires growth and development over time. To speak of friendship relationships properly, their three elements must take place (benevolence, beneficence and confidence), and they need at least two requirements from the point of view of developmental psychology: decentralization and empathy. Certainly, it is not possible to develop disinterested relationships if the stage of cognitive egocentrism -characteristic of childhood- has not been overcome or if there is no ability to understand the feelings of others. Additionally, confidence between friends is only possible when there is awareness of one’s own intimacy, a feature which appears in adolescence.

One of the factors for which friendship has been related to vital satisfaction and happiness, is that friends give meaning to one's own existence. This means that they give sense to it in at least three ways: because they allow you to live another life besides your own (Romero-Iribas, 2011), because they make it worth living it, and because friends are one of the reasons to live, although they are not the only one (May, 2012).

Cicero thought that virtue is what reconciles friendships and keeps them (trad. 2002), and from that perspective of friendship the virtues that usually accompany it, cannot be ignored:

• Respect: the other is loved for who he/she is and not for what he/she does or has.

• Sincerity, which is born out of mutual trust and is oblivious to pretence, hypocrisy, deceit or mistrust.

• Loyalty, which is built on sincerity and trust.

• At the core of this relationship is generosity or selflessness because it is considered that the friend himself is the true value.

• The disposition to forgive and ask for forgiveness is necessary because imperfections and mistakes are part of human behaviour and overcoming them through forgiveness is one of the aspects that every quality relationship requires.

Together with the virtues that accompany friendship, vices can also appear out of the relationship itself; or vices that affect it. For the purpose of this work, it may be illustrative to mention some of them because they usually appear in the development of peer relationships and therefore, they provide educational opportunities even in a negative way. In particular, friendship is negatively affected by resentment, envy, selfishness, susceptibility or criticism. In addition, vices from friendship itself are: “exemplarism”, possessiveness, and excessive shyness which interferes with friends’ trust (Laín Entralgo, 1986).

This brief approach to friendship allows us to see that it is intrinsically linked to emotions beyond the same friendly feeling (which does not seem to designate friendship in its entirety, although it is a factor or part of it.) That opens a different educational path for the development of the relationship beyond the ethical level, and for that, it is interesting to identify these emotions and what type they are.

The friendship emotions

Well then, which emotions appear linked to friendship? According to what is described here, and without intending to be exhaustive, the following can be identified: love, attachment, trust, affinity, self-esteem (its emotional aspect), altruism, embarrassment and hope. Moreover, in a negative way, resentment, envy, susceptibility, jealousy and shyness.

Most of these emotions are easily identifiable as linked to friendship after the development. However, two of them may require more explanation: a) embarrassment as a natural feeling that appears when the most intimate is exposed publicly (which in friendship, it is overcome by trust); b) hope, which is related to the fact that friendship provides meaning to human life and, the more meaningful it is, the more it fills it with hope.

Finally, we could say that at a psychosocial level and according to what has been described, friendship implies that: the human being is not an isolated being and it is an essential factor for personal and social development; that it is a free relationship and it is mutual knowledge. Therefore, emotionally, friendship provides overcoming the feeling of loneliness; well-being for the subject and health for the groups; development in altruist behaviors and empathic knowledge of another.

Contributions of psychological studies on emotion to friendship

A first approach to the analysis of the emotions that appears in the study of friendship, leads us to emotion and its cognitive dimension. After numerous emotions that this description leaves to psychological research, it seems convenient to pay attention to the nature of emotions and feelings (understood as a subjective experience of the emotion), to approach the common elements of the emotions of friendship. Emotion either understood as process or response (Fernández Abascal, García Rodríguez, Jiménez Sánchez, Martín Díaz, & Domínguez Sánchez, 2010), always responds to an eliciting stimulus. What makes a stimulus have that virtuality may be explained with the studies of Fridja (2001). However, only in some cases the direct parallelism between these laws of emotions and “the other” (the friend) as stimulus is clear, especially for being “someone” and not “something.” To this, we need to add the fact that emotions linked to friendship require either correlation or the other as beneficiary and not only as the trigger object, (it is the case of love and forgiveness as discussed below). In the 60s, it was established in the psychosomatic tradition that the stimulus to which we are most sensitive is the “psychosocial” stimulus, that is, the others (Martínez Priego, 2012).

We can also adopt a broader approach of the studies on emotion than seems more relevant for understanding friendship emotions; we mean, in general terms, to attend to the “cognitive dimension” of emotion (Lazarus, 1982). Indeed, although James (1884) and Damasio (2006) pointed out that the merely mental, or where there is no physiological participation, is not an emotion in its own sense; neither it seems emotions are triggered outside of a certain valuation of external (or internal) stimulus (Palmero, Guerrero, Gómez, & Carpi, 2006). If we attend to these variables, emotion can be defined as a "state of the subject" (psychophysical state) that occurs after cognitive-appraisal and conative or trend operations (classical appetite), in connection with the environment and one’s own psychosomatic reality (Martínez Priego, 2010).

For this reason, the friend can be known-valued as important in relation to one’s own goals, desires or worries; that is to say, in relation to one’s own state according to the quoted definition. This is especially clear in emotions such as attachment and trust. In both cases, the estimate that is made of the other is linked to the “law of concern” (Fridja, 2001). If we go a step further, it is necessary to recognize that not only in these emotions is “the other” the trigger, but others such as love, empathy, sympathy, compassion, respect, forgiveness, embarrassment, admiration and altruism, share the need to refer to an external subject --another self--. This becomes a triggering of each one of these emotions, although, not always in relation to the “law of concern” (meaning, in someone who satisfies me or fulfils my needs.) In other words, emotions relative to friendship are emotions that are triggered by the “other”, but that does not mean that they are necessarily triggered because the other “is convenient for me” or because “I need him/her”; they can be triggered independently to one’s own needs. The friendship relationship itself, and even the good of the other, is the beginning of some of these emotional states.

If this is so, we can state that two emotions that are part of friendship --vital satisfaction and well-being--, are in this relationship “derived emotions” or they come from previous situations that are “valued” by the subject as positive. That is to say, in friendship if the subject considers that the goal of the interpersonal relationship is the satisfaction of the “self”, then emotions like compassion, respect or forgiveness could not be authentic. Certainly, well-being can have various origins, but the well-being of friendship cannot be sought for itself, but it appears when there is a previous emotion (that can accompany knowledge or an action) related to another person: undoubtedly, this element refers to “personal unselfishness” (an attitude that we discuss below) or altruism (Blum, 1980). Some authors (Michie & Gooty, 2005), have also seen in emotions like compassion, respect, admiration or trust that they have the characteristic of referring to the other and not to oneself. They have been called “ other-directed emotions ” because they have taken place, according to these authors, for “the sake of the others” and for qualities or attributes of their actions. Moreover, they group the other-directed emotions under three categories: appreciation, gratitude and goodwill.

There is an aspect of friendship (reciprocity/mutuality and their implications) that can be detected in two of its emotions. On one side, in affinity (union), where it is clear because there cannot be a feeling of bonding or affinity except when it is something mutual. Otherwise, it would be a fake or empty emotion. Precisely due to this feature, friendship leads to overcoming the feeling of loneliness (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018). Additionally, embarrassment is linked to reciprocity in one of its implications. This feeling requires This feeling requires both the psychological emergence of one´s intimacy-privacy as the otherness (Dunn, 2004). Friends care for and share their intimate or private issues (psychical or biographical) for being valuable. And in love, personal intimacy is linked to commitment --and to passion in the case of romantic love-- (Sternberg, 1988).

On the other hand, affinity (union) requires other psychological requirements in the subject: decentering (requirement for joint attention) and empathic capacity (affection that knows and feels with the affection of others). Empathy is especially relevant in friendship because it is only possible in the simultaneity of emotional situations. Because it is about knowing and feeling with the other, empathy requires, -cognitively- decentering. This term, in our context, may not be understood as metacognition in respect to one’s own thoughts or emotions (Linaresa, Estéveza, Soler, & Cebollac, 2016), but as a thought that understands the real as real (Rof Carballo, 1952) and not as related to me. Both empathy and decentering involve recognition of the other, not as an extension of me, but as different from me. In this regard, the difference between decentering and "adualism", which is the opposite, is classical. (Piaget & Inhelder, 2007). Indeed, adualism is the situation of cognitive immaturity in which the child does not differentiate the world from the self. Maturing will allow him/her to sense and focus on the other or perceive the other as different and primary before the “self”. In other words, maturing is “decentering” (Polo, 2006). Therefore, both elements involve certain maturity of the personality.

Regarding other emotions such as hope and self-esteem (linked together), they have a different place: openness to the future. Hope involves self-transcendence and it requires self-esteem. In fact, hope has a certain foundation in the esteem that each one has of him/herself, but the esteem that others have for us is definitely the basis for this emotion (Winnicott, 1981). According to the classics, hope begins when a good is perceived as obtainable (Aquinas, trad. 2012, p. 914 [q.40, a.1]). In such a case, friendship can be a necessary help, either because of material participation in the achievement, or because of the value that we have and that makes us perceive that we can. Obviously, this is just the emotional principle of more nuanced feelings: the friendship relationship helps us discover real personal achievement: the meaning of one's life . Knowing the horizon of existence is the gateway to deep hope.

Finally, we found a characterization of emotions that seems to open new horizons: the other-oriented emotions . Without being able to provide a precise definition or one on which there is consensus, empathy, sympathy and compassion (Nussbaum, 1996) can be an example of the dynamics of these emotions (Hoening, 2018). Additionally, there are two others that are characteristic of friendship and, in our opinion, could be considered as other-oriented emotions: forgiveness and love (whose semantic breadth is not reduced to romantic love.) Among these emotions, there is a certain hierarchical system, so the inferior is understood and explained by the superior. Empathy has already been mentioned and characterized; however, here it appears as a condition for the following: only from it does it become possible "to suffer with the other" and "to reduce ourselves to suffer with the other". In forgiveness, the reduction towards the other is given "for the restitution of lost personal value." Therefore, as the link between emotion and morality is well known (Nussbaum, 1998), we can conclude that these feelings can be developed in a person of high moral level. There are authors who, attending to various cultural and religious traditions, explain these feelings in the context of “mercy” (Exline, Worthinton, Hill, & McCullough, 2003).

Thus, we understand that other-oriented emotions are more complex than the ones described until now because the other-oriented emotion leads us to “look at the other one better”; that is to say, search for “the best in the other”, and even what “the other does not see of him/herself”. As things stand, the "equality" that "true friendship" requires (Aristotle, trad. 1994) can always occur.

We stated that other-oriented emotions, hierarchically considered, are oriented towards love . That is to say, friendship love always requires otherness --another person--, and certain feelings in which the other is causer, aim, beneficiary, etcetera Love, also, is different from self-esteem in that it involves a bond. Being a “bonding feeling”, as the “ affective warp ”, it positively seeks the good "of" the other, not only the good "for" the other. The intention of good is not temporary (therefore, including altruist behaviours, but exceeding some of its limits.) Friendship love is a bond that is formed, among others, by benevolence in the stated sense: because we talk about that person’s own good, knowing the person is required, that is, knowing his/her personal sense.

New findings about types of emotions: other-oriented emotions and friendship

The study of friendship relationships has revealed its emotional content. The psychological analysis of these emotions shows different characteristics in each one of them, which suggests the existence of “types of emotions.” The emotions of friendship require each other and have a certain hierarchical nature. Thus, to conclude, it is now necessary to respond conceptually and operatively to the following question: which emotions can be worked from psychology and education to develop quality friendship relationships?

According to what has been stated so far, some emotions are left out by their derivative nature. Indeed, life satisfaction, well-being and hope do not arise directly in friendship relationships, but rather they result from them. In the case of satisfaction and well-being, if they are sought in the friendship relationship, they can make it inauthentic because they turn a relationship that is naturally free into one that is self-interested.

In the described and analysed emotions, we find:

• Emotions triggered by the other and that report some type of benefit to the subject that experiences them, as is the case of the attachment that provides security. These emotions, worked in an isolated way, do not lead to friendship.

• Emotions triggered by the other, but that do not benefit the subject: altruism. In general, anything that involves "not seeking personal interest", that is, selflessness, is a necessary condition for the development of friendly relations. Loyal companionship is a concrete way to initiate the development of altruism (unselfishness).

• However, deep or true friendship requires maturity. Therefore, the cognitive capacity of "decentering" and the affective capacity of "empathy" (which require "selflessness") are required. Both can be educated early in life.

• Compassion and forgiveness, which are other-oriented emotions, do not participate entirely in the dynamics of preceding emotions. Not only do they require empathic ability, but, also they must measure up to the friend and make him/her better.

The type of love that is friendship has one more feature: it is a "bonding feeling". That is, commitments, responsibilities, etcetera facilitate the willingness to love. If love is a person-person bond, it is possible that emotion is an accompanying but non-founding element of love. Personal love may not be the first thing in time, but the end, the nature of true friendships