What's love got to do with it? Exploring the impact of maintenance rules, love attitudes, and network support on friends with benefits relationships

Abstract

Friends with benefits relationships (FWBRs) are defined as relationships between cross‐sex friends in which the friends engage in sexual activity but do not define their relationship as romantic. Relationship scholars have only recently begun to examine these relationships, despite their mention in the popular media (e.g., HBO's ‘Sex in the City,’ MTV's ‘True Life,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ and the New York Times). This study explored the relationship between FWBRs and maintenance rules, love attitudes, and network communication and support. Respondents (N = 143) completed self‐report surveys in which they described their FWBRs, their perceived rules for maintenance, perceptions of same‐sex network communication and support, and the current status of their FWBRs. They also completed the short form of the love attitude scale (Hendrick, Hendrick, & Dicke, 1998). The findings suggest that people tend to communicate their FWBR experiences to their same‐sex friends and, in general, receive supportive responses. Although attitudes toward love (e.g., agape) did not impact rules for maintenance of FWBRs, attitudes toward love did influence motivations for FWBRs and the outcomes of these relationships.

Keywords:

• Cross‐sex Friendships
• Casual Sex
• Friends With Benefits

Notes

Mikayla Hughes is a doctoral student, Kelly Morrison is Associate Professor, and Kelli Jean K. Asada is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Due to the richness of this data set, other sections of the survey have been previously reported. Portions of this manuscript were presented at the International Communication Association's Annual Meeting, May 2004, New Orleans, LA. Correspondence to Mikayla Hughes, 443 Communication Arts & Sciences Building, Department of Communication, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824‐1212, USA. Email: [email protected]

For data entry each category was given a binary code with the number one signifying that the category was present (i.e., reported by the respondent) and the number zero signifying that the category was not present (i.e., not reported by the respondent). The goal for this coding was to create a representative list of categories, one that would demonstrate the breadth of responses reported by the participants rather than the frequency of each response. This choice was made in order to facilitate data entry purposes because the participants wrote quite extensively in response to each question. For example, the entry for the participant who reported their motivations toward FWB relationships as ‘I liked other girls as well, and did not want to be tied down’ would receive only one code for the relationship avoidance category being present, rather than two. Thus, the data are representative of the range of categories reported, rather than the depth reported for each category.

The Cohen's kappas for the undergraduate research assistants ranged from .68 to .84.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mikayla Hughes

Mikayla Hughes is a doctoral student, Kelly Morrison is Associate Professor, and Kelli Jean K. Asada is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Due to the richness of this data set, other sections of the survey have been previously reported. Portions of this manuscript were presented at the International Communication Association's Annual Meeting, May 2004, New Orleans, LA. Correspondence to Mikayla Hughes, 443 Communication Arts & Sciences Building, Department of Communication, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824‐1212, USA. Email: [email protected]