Associate Professor of Psychology Keelah Williams co-authored a paper with Yingtao (McQueen) Li ’28 and Eric Chung ’28 titled “Cross-societal evidence of sex differences in preference for emotional support from friends.” Jessica Ayers (Boise State University) also collaborated on the work. The paper appears as part of a special issue on friendship in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
Williams said the group’s findings were very simple: “Across four countries (China, UK, Australia, USA) women reported prioritizing emotional support from their friends more than men did. In ongoing research, we are exploring whether this finding depends on how you define emotional support.”
Li and Chung worked as Williams’ research assistants through the PSYCH 198 “Collaborative Research” course, and will continue working with her on the project this summer. They also presented a poster on this research at the 2026 Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in February.
Posted April 27, 2026
