Hello Fellow Hedonists,
According to Dr. Richard Tunney, of the University of Nottingham, lottery winners who have at least 10 good friends are likely to be happier than those with less than five. This unsurprising finding kind of corroborates another unsurprising study which shows that happy people have more friends than their less happy counterparts. In an interview, Dr. Tunney reported that "people who were 'extremely satisfied' with their lives had twice the number of friends of people who were 'extremely dissatisfied'."
The details of this study can be found in the Circle of Friends Report, commissioned by The National Lottery. I wouldn't begin adding or subtracting friends just yet as this might just be another case in which psychologists confuse correlation with causation; evidence suggests that the common cause here might be an extroverted personality-type. There might also be a self-reinforcing cyclical relationship of some sort: happy people are more successful, socially, and social success makes people happier.
There might even be a hedonic ideal that varies from person to person: an optimal friend number/closeness ratio that depends on your innate personality traits.
Excelsior!
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