Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the Gregariousness Facet (E2)

Aristotle devoted two whole books of his Nicomachean Ethics to friendship, more than to almost any other single subject, because he thought you could not describe a good human life without it. For him, a flourishing life had friendship built into it, near the core rather than the margins. He states the stakes bluntly. In the Nicomachean Ethics he writes, "Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods." How much you seek out that company in the first place is, in the Big Five, one facet.

How much you seek company is the Gregariousness facet

That facet is Gregariousness (E2), under Extraversion, how much you enjoy the company of others and actively seek it out. A high scorer is drawn to the group and feels fed by good company; a low scorer likes people in smaller doses and needs solitude to recharge. Aristotle writes as if high E2 were simply human nature, treating the desire for friends as a basic feature of a person rather than a preference. He is describing the pull toward others that the Big Five measures as a dial, and placing it near the center of a life worth living.

Aristotle is careful to separate the kinds of friendship, which maps onto the difference between seeking company and the closeness of a bond, or Friendliness (E1). He ranks friendships of pleasure and use below the deep friendship of shared character, which is the warm, close tie E1 describes. A person can be high in E2, always surrounded, yet short on the close bonds Aristotle prized most, since volume and depth are different things. For a lower-E2 reader that is the reassuring part, because Aristotle's highest friendship asks for a few real bonds rather than a wide social circle.

For a reader placing themselves, your E2 is a fair read on how much company you need to feel good and how quickly solitude tips from restful into lonely. High on it and Aristotle is confirming an instinct you already trust, and a reason to treat your friendships as part of the good life rather than a distraction from it. Low on it and the Ethics is a gentle case that even a small handful of true friends is doing something essential for you. Where you sit on Gregariousness tells you how strongly you reach for other people, and we take the facet apart in Gregariousness (E2).

Read the book: Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

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