A familiar stranger is an individual who is recognized from regular activities, but with whom one does not interact. First identified by Stanley Milgram in the 1972 paper The Familiar Stranger: An Aspect of Urban Anonymity, it has become an increasingly popular concept in research about social networks.
Somebody who is seen daily on the train or at the gym, but with whom one does not otherwise communicate, is an example of a familiar stranger. If such individuals meet in an unfamiliar setting, for example while travelling, they are more likely to introduce themselves than would perfect strangers, since they have a background of shared experiences.
The 1972 paper was based on two independent research projects conducted in 1971, one at City University of New York and the other at a train station. Milgram published a second paper on the subject, Frozen World of the Familiar Stranger, in 1974. It appeared in the magazine Psychology Today.
Paulos and Goodman adopted the concept as part of a research program titled Familiar Stranger Project.
Famous quotes containing the words familiar and/or stranger:
“Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“I would rather be the child of a mother who has all the inner conflicts of the human being than be mothered by someone for whom all is easy and smooth, who knows all the answers, and is a stranger to doubt.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)