Sexual Advice-Seeking in Friendships

Decisions about sexual practices are often informed by others friends (“advisers”). This study extended advice response theory (ART; MacGeorge, Feng, &amp; Guntzviller, 2016) to consider an important relational and public health issue–sexual advice seeking. Sexual advice-recipients (<i>N </i>= 273) were surveyed about their evaluation of face concerns, advisor characteristics, message features, and advice outcomes. Results indicated that sexual advice-recipients evaluated an advisor’s message content based on their perceptions of relational closeness, the quality of the message, and being encouraged to use condoms. Positive face was associated with advisor characteristics, advice quality, and messages that encouraged condom use. As a group, message features (i.e., sexual advice-seeking and message politeness) positively mediated the association between advisor characteristics and advice outcomes; indicating that advice-recipients carefully scrutinize the content of these messages. Advice-recipients reported to disclose sexual information when evaluating the message content and their own engagement in risky sexual behaviors, with quality advice encouraging condom use. Implications for sexual advice-seeking and ART are discussed.