How do you get a kind, compassionate, supportive roommate who is also a friend? The answer is simple: be one. That’s according to University of Michigan researchers who studied more than 300 college freshmen assigned to share rooms with other students they didn’t know.

“Roommate relationships can be really good or they can be really bad. And the fear is that they’ll go from bad to worse,” says Jennifer Crocker, one of the social psychologists who conducted the university’s study. “But our study shows that you can create a supportive relationship and turn the stranger who’s your roommate into a friend.”

One of Crocker’s colleagues, Amy Canevello, says that college freshmen often wait to become friends with roommates before interacting in a caring and compassionate manner. If you have a goal from the beginning to be caring and supportive, Canevello says, “the friendship will come and you become that much closer and develop a really strong friendship”. Here are some guidelines.

Don’t just be polite or tolerant of your roommate; practice caring about them, responding compassionately and supportively.

You can’t fake this. The researchers say that roommates were very aware if the other was acting “nice” or “supportive”, but wasn’t sincere. Roommates easily spot the motives of someone who asks how his partner’s day went mainly because he wants to talk about his own day, Canevello says.

After years of impressing teachers and coaches with their intelligence and skills, some kids come to college thinking that’s the way to make friends. Canevello says trying to impress a roommate creates distance. A far better goal for a relationship is to be supportive.

Have the difficult conversations with your roommate early and with sensitivity, says Canevello. If your night owl roommate is keeping you up too late, or she’s messy when you’re neat, don’t see it as “her problem”. See it as “our problem”. Get away from the “ego-system” approach — in which each person focuses on her own needs and tries to shore up her own self-image — and instead move toward an “eco-system” approach, in which roommates are motivated by genuine caring for each other.