[citation][nom]zoobiewa[/nom]It's hilarious to see people so miffed about these results. Not one comment acknowledges that this illuminates the realness of online relationships. People definitely don't like being reminded that they aren't individuals as much as they think they are but are actually intimately tied into an emotional, social web of connections.[/citation]
I laugh at all psychological research. This study told me absolutely nothing new. Of course people who are deeply invested in their facebook friends list are going to feel particularly bad if someone defriends them. That's so obvious that I am simply amazed they conducted the study.
I also don't trust psychological research. It's an untested, un-vetted, undefined soft science/pseudo-science that is used by corporations and the government to attempt to manipulate the population into doing certain things.
Psychologically designed games suck, psychologically designed ads are insulting, psychological profile quizzes on job applications are unfair, and psychologists are largely some of the most unethical "scientists" in the business. Take a list of the most perverse experiments conducted in the last 100 years and you'll see an undue number of psychologists on the list of participants.
So far as I can tell, psychology at this moment in time is the science of common sense. I pay no heed to it since my common sense is intact.