Friends with Benefits

Deceptive Affection Across Relational Contexts: A Group Comparison of Romantic Relationships, Cross-Sex Friendships, and Friends With Benefits Relationships

“…Third, each of the three relationships varies on their level of commitment or a sense of togetherness and a desire to continue the relationship (Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998). Those in FWBRs report little to no commitment to the relationship (Mongeau et al, 2003), which is dissimilar to the higher commitment found in RRs (Sternberg, 1987) and CSFs (Dainton et al, 2003).…”

“…FWBRs, on the other hand, are characterized by partners engaging in physically intimate acts (ranging from genital touching to sexual intercourse), without having a relational commitment to one another. FWBRs are considered a relational hybrid between friendships and intimate sexual relationships and are an increasingly common form of relationships in emerging adulthood (Mongeau, Ramirez, & Vorell, 2003). It is useful to compare FWBRs with RRs and CSFs in order to better understand the nature of these different relationships.…”

“…Examining three relationships that differ in commitment and intimacy will fill a gap in current research on the varying association of deceptive affection with relational health outcomes depending on relational type (Floyd, 2006). Although individuals in each of these relationships likely use deceptive affection to maintain the relationship (Carton & Horan, 2014; Horan & Booth-Butterfield, 2013), FWBRs may be the most affected by deceptive affection because they often experience the most incongruity between their affectionate feelings and expressions due to the lack of emotional intimacy, but heightened sexual intimacy (Mongeau et al, 2003). Affection may be stressful when individuals communicate affection that is outside of their desired level (Floyd, 2006).…”

“…Ultimately, FWBR partners may communicate affection outside of their desired level to maintain the relatively complex status of the FWBR and avoid relational commitment to undesirable prospective partners. Thus, deceptive affection could be more consequential to relational health in an FWBR (Mongeau et al, 2003). Based on preliminary research on deceptive affection and FWBRs, the present study posed the following hypotheses to test how deceptive affection predicts relational health among relationship types:…”

Communicative Dilemmas in Emerging Adults’ Friends With Benefits Relationships

“…One way of understanding FWBRs is simply as “‘friends’ who have sex” (Bisson & Levine, 2009, p. 66). Many FWBRs are relationships in which participants are friends first, both temporally and in terms of their significance to each other (Hughes et al, 2005; Mongeau, Shaw, & Knight, 2009; Stafford et al, 2014). In these FWBRS, partners like and trust each other and enjoy engaging in nonsexual activities together (Bisson & Levine, 2009; Stafford et al, 2014).…”