Daniel Sznycer wins Ig Nobel Prize for study on friendship

Argentine anthropologist Daniel Sznycer, along with researchers Jaimie Krems and Keelah Williams, has been awarded the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Peace. The recognition stems from their research published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, which explores a paradox in human friendship.

Their study, involving over one thousand participants from the United States and India, suggests that while people generally value reliable and generous friends, there is an evolutionary preference for friends to act differently toward us than they do toward our rivals. Specifically, individuals may prefer friends to be less generous and more aggressive when interacting with an enemy or competitor.

Sznycer, an anthropologist at the University of Buenos Aires and a doctor in Evolutionary Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, noted that natural selection may have shaped these social judgments to benefit individual interests. The Ig Nobel ceremony, held in Zurich, Switzerland, honors research that 'first makes people laugh, and then makes them think.'