Costs and Benefits of Friendship

Abstract

The Costs and Benefits of Friendship Scale (CBFS) is a comprehensive psychological instrument developed to quantify the perceived advantages and disadvantages inherent in both same-sex and opposite-sex friendship relationships. Grounded partially in an evolutionary psychology framework, the scale addresses the complexity of non-kin social bonds, particularly the inherent tension and ambiguity surrounding sexual boundaries in cross-sex pairings. The CBFS aims to identify the full range of relational utilities, including resource exchange, protection, emotional support, and the potential costs associated with romantic rivalry, jealousy, and unreciprocated sexual attraction, as perceived by both men and women.

Keywords

Friendship, Social Relationships, Sexual Attraction, Costs and Benefits, Opposite-Sex Friendship, Interpersonal Relationships, Psychometrics, Bleske & Buss.

Authors

April L. Bleske, David M. Buss

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Costs and Benefits of Friendship Scale is to systematically assess and quantify the full spectrum of perceived costs and benefits experienced by individuals within their non-romantic, non-kin social relationships. This 116-item self-report measure was specifically designed to capture the complex dynamics of same-sex and opposite-sex pairings, moving beyond the traditional focus on mutual support to include potential downsides like resource expenditure, romantic rivalry, and sexual frustration.

The scale is particularly valuable for research exploring the evolutionary underpinnings of human social behavior, providing empirical data on how men and women navigate the inherent adaptive problems associated with maintaining relationships that carry both reproductive potential (especially opposite-sex friendships) and potential resource drain or opportunity costs.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of perceived relational utility, which is operationalized through distinct categories of costs and benefits associated with friendship. These categories include, but are not limited to, resource acquisition (e.g., money, advice), physical protection, self-esteem enhancement, mate guarding, and reproductive opportunities (or the lack thereof).

A central aspect of the construct is the assessment of sexual ambiguity, particularly within cross-sex friendships. The scale captures items reflecting the conflict between maintaining a platonic bond and the underlying reproductive or mating motivations that may lead to perceived costs (e.g., jealousy, confusion about relationship status, unreciprocated desire). The comprehensive nature of the 116 items ensures measurement across social, emotional, resource-based, and sexual domains.

Validity

The validity of the Costs and Benefits of Friendship Scale is primarily supported by its extensive content validity, derived from a thorough analysis of existing friendship literature and pilot studies designed to capture the breadth of relational experiences across genders. This qualitative foundation ensures the items cover the diverse range of costs and benefits relevant to both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships.

Construct validity was established through factor analysis, which demonstrated that the 116 items clustered into meaningful domains aligning with theoretical predictions from evolutionary psychology regarding resource exchange and mating strategies. Specifically, items concerning sexual benefits and costs loaded onto distinct factors, confirming the scale’s ability to differentiate between platonic utility and potential mating utility in friendships, thus validating its theoretical basis.

Reliability

Reliability for the various subscales derived from the Costs and Benefits of Friendship Scale typically demonstrates strong internal consistency. The seminal Bleske and Buss (2000) study reported high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the major composite factors, indicating that items within each conceptual domain reliably measure the same underlying construct.

Specifically, factors measuring broad benefits (e.g., advice, protection) and costs (e.g., resource drain, sexual frustration) showed acceptable to excellent reliability scores across different samples. These results confirm the scale’s stability and consistency in measuring these complex personal relationships constructs across diverse friendship contexts.

Factor Analysis

The development of the scale included an extensive factor analysis to organize the 116 items into conceptually meaningful subscales. This analysis revealed distinct clusters of benefits and costs that often differed significantly between same-sex and opposite-sex friendship contexts, and between male and female perceptions.

Key factors identified typically include: (1) Resource Exchange and Support (e.g., emotional advice, protection); (2) Mate Access and Information (benefits related to meeting potential partners); (3) Sexual Access and Frustration (costs and benefits related to sexual activity or lack thereof); and (4) Romantic Rivalry and Jealousy (costs associated with the friend interfering with existing romantic relationships). This factor structure emphasizes the dual nature of friendship as both a supportive social bond and a potential arena for sexual and romantic competition.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Questionnaire / Psychological Inventory

Format: 116 items, rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale

Language Available: English (Primary)

Population Group: General adult population

Age Group: Adults (Primarily college-aged samples in initial validation)

Population Details: Used to assess perceptions of costs and benefits in both same-sex and opposite-sex friendships.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate each item twice: once for how Beneficial the experience was, and once for how Costly the experience was, using the 7-point scale ranging from “Not at all” to “Somewhat” to “Very.”

Keywords

Cross-sex relationships, Mating strategies, Social support, Relationship costs, Interpersonal conflict, Resource allocation, Jealousy, Relational utility.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A

Correspondence Address: N/A

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 2000 (Based on initial publication).

Permissions/Fee: Standard academic permission required. Users should contact the primary authors (Bleske or Buss) for usage permission, particularly for commercial or large-scale research applications. No specific fee structure is publicly documented.

Reference’s

Bleske, A.L., & Buss, D.M. (2000). Can men and women just be friends? Personal Relationships, 7, 131-151.

Kaplan, M.F., & Keys, C.B. (1997). The costs and benefits of opposite-sex friendships. Unpublished manuscript, Northern Illinois University.

Swain, S. (1992). The costs and benefits of close relationships. In D.J. Ozer, J.M. Healy, Jr., & A.J. Stewart (Eds.), Perspectives in personality: Vol. 4 (pp. 165–186). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Items of the Costs and Benefits of Friendship

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Costs/Benefits of Friendships (7 point scale, Not at all to Somewhat to Very)

How How Beneficial? Costly?

1. He introduced me to his friends.
2. I spent a lot of money on him.
3. He was condescending towards me.
4. He walked me to my car at night.
5. He could tell me anything.
6. People thought I was a bad person because I hung out with him.
7. I didn’t get to have sex with him.
8. He made me feel good about myself by complimenting me.
9. I made his girlfriend jealous.
10. Others disliked me because I hung out with him.
11. I felt like I had no control over who he had sex with.
12. He protected me.
13. I could not discuss other women with him for fear of losing him.
14. I felt safer in dangerous situations when I was with him.
15. We had sexual intercourse.
16. He took care of me when another girl was being too sexually aggressive towards me.
17. He gave me flowers and cards.
18. He let me have sex with him.
19. He bought me things.
20. He got drunk and had sex with my friends.
21. He told me if I deserved someone better than the girl I was with.
22. I wanted to date him but didn’t know how he felt about me.
23. He owned an expensive car.
24. I prevented him from having sex with someone else.
25. Our friendship demanded a lot of my time.
26. He took advantage of my girlfriend while I was away.
27. I gave up my time to help him, no matter how busy I was.
28. He went out to dinner with me.
29. There was the possibility of a future relationship beyond friendship.
30. My self-esteem went down when I was with him because he was so physically attractive.
31. He saw me as “just a friend.”
32. I had a say in who he had sex with.
33. He gave me sexual pleasure if I was stressed.
34. He paid for me when we went out.
35. He had sex with a lot of girls.
36. I loaned him money.
37. He gave me good advice about girls. He denied me sex.
38. He wanted to date me, but I didn’t want to date him.
39. He had a girlfriend.
40. He told me if I was not good enough for a certain girl.
41. He helped me understand the opposite sex.
42. I paid for him when we went places.
43. My lust for him interfered with my ability to be friends with him.
44. He told me what women want and like in a romantic partner.
45. I discouraged him from having sex with other girls.
46. He didn’t want to be my girlfriend.
47. He gave me advice on how to attract women.
48. We are confused about our feelings for one another.
49. I got an idea of what girls want by hanging out with him.
50. He made public jokes at my expense.
51. He made my girlfriend jealous.
52. I was in love with him, but he was not in love with me.
53. He use to flirt with my girlfriend.
54. I was jealous of the other girls in his life.
55. He talked about other girls to make me jealous.
56. I felt like I had to hide our friendship from my girlfriend.
57. He helped me meet other girls.
58. My pressuring him for sex led to a lessening of our friendship.
59. My girlfriend tried to compete with him.
60. He set me up with women.
61. I didn’t let him have sex with other women.
62. It was hard to determine whether we were going to stay friends or move on to a romantic relationship.
63. He would have made a great girlfriend if we had decided to date.
64. He dated a girl that I liked.
65. He ran errands for me.
66. He didn’t see me as more than “one of the guys.”
67. He scared away other girls from talking to me.
68. He made me feel wanted by the opposite sex.
69. I felt bad talking to other girls when I was around him.
70. He told me which women I could and could not attract.
71. I could tell him everything, even things I couldn’t tell my girlfriends.
72. He had sexual intercourse with my friends.
73. People treated me with respect because I was his friend.
74. It was harder for me to meet new girls when he was around.
75. He was popular.
76. I could not reciprocate the feelings he had for me.
77. He was respected by other people.
78. He was a ready-made date.
79. It annoyed me that he wouldn’t have sex with me.
80. Others liked me because I hung out with him.
81. He was everything I could ask for in a girlfriend.
82. He belittled me in front of others.
83. It was difficult to meet his friends because others thought I was dating him.
84. He made fun of me in public.
85. He boosted my self-esteem.
86. I kept him from having sex with anyone but me.
87. He boosted my ego.
88. His girlfriend got jealous of the time I spend with him.
89. We competed to attract women.
90. He helped my feel more confident in romantic relationships.
91. We talked about the details of each other’s sex life.
92. He wouldn’t allow me to date his friends.
93. He made me feel attractive to the opposite sex.
94. I felt unattractive in comparison to him.
95. His girlfriend paid more attention to him when I spent a lot of time with him.
96. He made me feel insecure about my worth.
97. He was somebody that I used sexually.
98. He liked the same women that I did.
99. I wanted to date him, but he didn’t like me in that way.
100. I felt guilty if I talked about other women around him.
101. I got confused over the status of our relationship.
102. He watched over me in any situation.
103. We went out together to meet women.
104. He had sex with too many girls.
105. He told me which women would like me or not.
106. He ignored me when I said I didn’t want to date him.
107. He did not want to be more than friends.
108. I could talk to him about anything.
109. We had sexual intercourse.
110. He was clean-cut, respectable to hang out with.
111. He could talk about everything and anything with me.
112. Our feelings for each other got in the way of the friendship.
113. He arranged for me to go on dates with his friends.
114. He told me when my girlfriends weren’t good enough for me.
115. He looked down on me.