Friendship Test

What kind of friend are you? Loyal, fun, the listener or the fixer

8 min · Free · No account

Friendship Test: Four friends around a kitchen table at night sharing takeout, one laughing, one listening closely, one passing a dish, next to an eTestor mug

What type of friend am I?

This test answers with six friend types, each built on one of the six things people expect from a friend in Jeffrey Hall's 2012 research: the Loyalist (loyalty and trust), the Confidant (closeness and deep talk), the Fun One (good times), the Helper (practical help), the Kindred Spirit (shared interests and values) and the Go-Getter (drive and connections). Your type is the one you give most, and you see it free when you finish. Most people give several, so the full report shows all six.

About this test

This friendship quiz scores six things friends expect from each other: Loyalty (keeping confidences, honesty, fair give and take), Closeness (deep talks, listening, sharing), Fun (plans, jokes, good company), Practical help (time, favors, sorting things out), Common ground (shared interests, humor and values) and Drive (ambition, contacts, pushing friends forward). Your highest score is your friend type. It describes the kind of friend you are, not how good a friend you are.

What you'll discover

Loyalty
Keeping confidences, being honest, standing up for friends and making sure the give and take runs both ways.
Closeness
Deep talks, listening, sharing what's really going on and noticing when a friend is struggling.
Fun
Making plans, making people laugh and turning ordinary time together into a good time.
Practical help
Showing up with time, things and skills: moving day, a sick friend, a problem that needs sorting.
Common ground
Bonding through shared interests, humor and values, and feeling closest to people like you.
Drive
Pushing friends toward their goals, connecting them with people and bringing energy, ambition and know-how.

Understanding the Friendship Test

This friendship test gives you 48 statements about what you actually do with friends, like keeping a secret, planning a trip, dropping off soup or pushing someone to apply for the job, and asks how much each sounds like you. There are eight for each of the six types, and it takes about 8 minutes. Your friend type is free when you finish. The full report scores all six, so you can see whether you're clearly a Helper or a Helper with a lot of Confidant in you.

The six come from research. Jeffrey Hall gathered 181 statements from earlier studies of what people expect from friends and, across three studies with 1,376 people, found they fall into six groups: symmetrical reciprocity, communion, enjoyment, instrumental aid, similarity and agency (Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2012, doi:10.1177/0265407512448274). In plainer words: loyalty and fair give and take, closeness, fun, practical help, common ground, and agency, which in Hall's work covers qualities like status and physical fitness. We read agency as the drive and contacts a friend brings. Hall measured what people want from a friend. We turned each dimension around into statements about what you give, and the statements are ours, not his.

We think the mix matters more than the label. Picture a Confidant who wants a long talk and a Fun One who wants to go out: both are being good friends, in different ways, and each can feel short-changed by the other. Hall also reviewed 36 samples covering 8,825 people and found that, on average, women expected more communion from a friend and men more agency, with moderate differences and plenty of people on the other side (Hall, 2011, doi:10.1177/0265407510386192). This test is your own view of yourself. Your friends might describe you differently, and asking them is the best check we know of.

Where the Friendship Test comes from

Jeffrey A. Hall identified the dimensions of what people expect from an ideal friend in three studies published in 2012: an exploratory analysis of 30 existing subscales of friendship expectations (307 people), a reduction of 181 items to 51 (401 people) and a confirmatory test in an international internet sample (668 people). Six factors emerged: symmetrical reciprocity, agency, enjoyment, instrumental aid, similarity and communion. The structure held across samples, by sex and by age.

How the Friendship Test is scored

Six scales of eight statements, two of them reverse-worded, each scored from 8 to 40; your friend type is the highest. Hall measured what people expect from a friend. This test turns each dimension into statements about what you do as a friend, and reads agency, which Hall's earlier review illustrated with status and physical fitness, as the drive and contacts a friend brings. The statements and type names are eTestor's own and have not been checked against Hall's 51-item measure, so the result is a reflection built on a published model, not a validated score.

Based on a published, peer-reviewed model

Hall, J. A. (2012). Friendship standards: The dimensions of ideal expectations. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29(7), 884–907.

Questions people ask

Is the friendship test free?

Yes. The test and your friend type are free, with no account needed: just your email at the end. Every score, the written analysis and the certificate are in the full report: $1.99$2.41 in the first 30 minutes after you finish, $3.99$4.83 after that, or included in eTestor Unlimited.

Is this a BFF test to see how well my friends know me?

No. A BFF test or best friend quiz is usually a game: you answer questions about yourself, send the link, and friends score points for guessing your answers. This test is about you and what kind of friend you are. If you want to compare, you and a friend can each take it and see where your types match and where they differ.

What makes a good friend?

No single trait. Hall's research found six standards people hold friends to: loyalty and fair give and take, closeness, fun, practical help, common ground and agency. One person's ideal friend is a Confidant, another's is the Fun One. We think what matters most is whether what you give matches what your friend values, and the simplest way to find out is to ask them.

Can I be more than one type of friend?

Yes, and most people are. Your type is simply your highest score. The full report shows all six, and when two or three are close, each description is worth reading. Your type can also shift between groups: you might be the Fun One with old school friends and the Helper with the people you work with.

Is the friendship test scientific?

Partly. The six dimensions come from peer-reviewed research, and Hall confirmed the same structure across samples, across men and women, and across ages (Hall, 2012). The friend types and the statements are ours, and we haven't checked them against Hall's questionnaire, so treat your result as a reflection built on solid research, not a precise measurement.