Friendship · editorial rating

Marisa G. Franco

Franco is what this category should look like: a trained psychologist whose advice tracks the research closely and costs little. Her only honesty slip is presenting company survey figures on workplace belonging as firm results.

Editorial opinion: SG Score 88 out of 100. Verdict: EVIDENCE-BACKED. This is not a customer star rating and not a finding by a court.

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Strengths

• Holds a PhD in counseling psychology and cites specific studies for her advice
• Advice lines up closely with research on the liking gap and friendship formation
• Main product is a $30 book, with free articles and a free guide

Weaknesses

• The 56% performance and 50% turnover figures come from a BetterUp survey summarized in Harvard Business Review, not a peer-reviewed experiment (S5).
• Speaking fees are not listed on her site (S1).

Claims

1. holds. When strangers interact, they later underestimate how much they are liked, so assuming people like you moves you closer to reality.

   This is a faithful reading of the liking gap research, and related work shows conversations with strangers go better than people predict.

   Sources: R30 R29

2. holds. The belief that friendship should happen organically, without effort, is likely to stymie friendship; you have to reach out over and over.

   Research on friendship formation shows it takes many hours of shared time, and strong social ties are linked to longer life. Her advice to invest effort fits the evidence.

   Sources: R26 R25 R28

3. partly. Workplace belonging brings a 56% increase in performance and a 50% drop in turnover risk.

   These figures come from a 2019 BetterUp company survey of 1,789 workers, summarized in HBR without full methods. It is correlational industry research, not a peer-reviewed experiment.

   Sources: S5 S6

Also in Friendship

• Dale Carnegie (76, EVIDENCE-BACKED)

Sources

1. S1 Dr. Marisa G. Franco (homepage). drmarisagfranco.com. https://www.drmarisagfranco.com/
2. S2 Platonic by Marisa G. Franco, PhD. Penguin Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/676695/platonic-by-marisa-g-franco-phd/
3. S3 How to Make Friends as an Adult. drmarisagfranco.com. https://drmarisagfranco.com/how-to-make-friends-as-an-adult/
4. S4 How to Make the Lasting Friendships You Want. Greater Good Magazine, UC Berkeley (Jill Suttie). https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_make_the_lasting_friendships_you_want
5. S5 The Value of Belonging at Work. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/12/the-value-of-belonging-at-work
6. S6 Study Finds Employees Who Feel Included Are 50 Percent Less Likely to Quit. Inc.. https://www.inc.com/adam-robinson/study-finds-employees-who-feel-included-are-50-percent-less-likely-to-quit.html
7. S7 About Dr. Marisa G. Franco. drmarisagfranco.com. https://drmarisagfranco.com/about/

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