Family and friends make up the circle of relationships closest to an individual and their relevance has been widely studied by the social sciences. In contrast, the size and importance of wider social circles – those considered as “acquaintances” – has hardly been analysed, despite their possible repercussions on people’s wellbeing.

We understand “acquaintances” to mean a set of social relationships that require, as a minimum, mutual recognition and repeated interactions, even if these are sporadic or superficial. We include people ranging from family and close friends (strong relationships) to work colleagues, neighbours, teachers and parents of our children’s schoolfriends or the staff that serve us where we usually go shopping (weak relationships).

The study presented here¹ has calculated that Spanish people have an average of 536 acquaintances. This figure is consistent with prior studies of the American population and enables the circle of acquaintances to be pondered with respect to that of close relationships, which the authors estimate at an average of 23.

As with closer ties, a person’s network of acquaintances is configured by social context factors. The action of these factors causes a series of inequalities, which can be determinants at key times in life. For example, people with higher incomes or with employment have social circles of a greater size, which increases the probabilities of them being lent money or given emotional accompaniment if they have personal problems.

The proportions of this circle vary enormously. The average for the Spanish population is 536 acquaintances per person, but the majority of the population have between 350 and 450. These data were collected in a study of a base of over 2,200 Spanish citizens aged between 18 and 93 years. Respondents were asked how many people they knew with certain names and, based on their answers and the prevalence of those names across the whole of the population, the dimensions of their relationship networks with weaker ties were calculated using statistic methods².

One’s number of acquaintances is marked by different factors that influence the size of these relationship networks. Gender is one of these, but not the only one. Women usually have fewer acquaintances than men. Age, education level and income level are also important. Elderly people, with a low level of education or with a low income, present smaller circles of acquaintances. 

As can be supposed, participating in associations of different types has a direct impact on the volume of people that are known. Being an active member of an association is related with a 10%  increase in the size of one’s network of acquaintances, while participating in various association raises the volume by 29%. This reinforces the importance of association-building to create a relevant social capital, by connecting a broad range of individuals with each other.

In particular, active participation in sports clubs, cultural or leisure groups, associations of young people or students, and social support or human rights associations is significantly related with a large size of one’s network of acquaintances. In contrast, there are other factors that could be associated with a higher probability of socialisation, such as is having children of a school age, being married, or attending religious services, which do not have a relevant statistical effect or which are not explained by age or gender factors.

It is supposed that our partners, family and closest friends are the people who have the most influence on our lives and who offer us the most emotional, material and economic support. But in our everyday life, in reality, we usually spend the majority of our time with other people, the broad range that includes our acquaintances and where they are found, for example, work colleagues³. Despite having lesser involvement than the closer circle, this network of acquaintances also can be a source of social support and play a relevant role in certain situations. For example, when stronger relationships are not in a condition to help or when empathy is not expected of them⁴.

The results indicate that, effectively, before closer networks of a similar size, people with a larger number of acquaintances have more probabilities of receiving help in certain aspects, such as availability of emotional or economic support when needed. In contrast, the role of the number of acquaintances is surprisingly marginal in other areas, such as, for example, providing help to find a job.

The inequalities observed due to factors such as gender, age, level of income and of education confirm that the most vulnerable people, those that need most support and protection before adversities, are precisely those that have the least possibilities of obtaining it. In this sense, the characteristics of the safety network formed by family members, friends and even acquaintances constitute a source of additional inequality to those that already exist.

Beyond the inequalities already observed with regard to the dimensions of wider social circles, researchers are now studying whether, as is expected, differentiations also exist with regard to their composition and to what point this could bias our perception on the functioning of our society. For example, individual appreciation of the country’s economic situation could diverge depending on the number of people adversely affected by the crisis that are to be found within our circle of acquaintances.