Image: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin attend the 3rd annual Sean Penn & Friends HELP HAITI HOME Gala on January 11, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for J/P Haitian Relief Organization)..
图片：格温妮丝·帕特洛和克里斯马丁于2014年1月11日在贝弗利山庄，加利福尼亚参加了第三年度的西恩·潘和朋友们帮助海地家庭联欢晚会。（照片由Kevin Mazur /盖蒂图片社为J/P海地救援组织）。
Why do we sometimes stay friends with ex-partners? There may be many reasons, but according to a new paper in Personality and Individual Differences they fall into seven main categories – and men and women don’t quite see eye-to-eye on them. The research also found that certain personality traits were related to motivations for staying friends after a break-up.
为什么我们有时候会和前任伴侣保持朋友关系？这里可能有很多原因，但是根据《人格和个体差异》的一篇新论文，分为七个主要原因，而且，男人和女人对他们的看法不太一致。研究还发现，某些性格特征与分手后保持朋友关系的动机有关。
Justin Mogilski and Lisa Welling at Oakland University, US, asked a group of 348 volunteers to think of as many reasons as possible for why two former partners might want to remain friends. This resulted in a 153-item list..
为什么两个前伴侣还有可能希望保持友谊？美国奥克兰大学的Justin Mogilski和Lisa Welling要求一群348名志愿者为此考虑尽可能多的原因，结果他们得到了153个项目清单。
A second group of hundreds more people – all of whom who had gone through at least one break-up (and were overwhelmingly exclusively heterosexual) – rated the importance of each item on a scale of 1 – 5. Then they completed personality questionnaires, including one tapping features of pathological personality, such as the tendency to experience negative emotions, antagonism (aggression and grandiosity), and sensation-seeking..
在第二组的数百人中，他们都经历了至少一次分手（绝大多数是异性恋者），以1～5的评分级别来评价每一个项目的重要性。他们同时完成了人格问卷，其中包括病理性人格特征的抽样，例如，体验消极情绪的倾向，敌意（侵略新和浮夸），以及和寻求刺激。
From the ratings, Mogilski and Welling identified seven main categories of reason for wanting to stay friends with an ex:.
Mogilski和Welling从评分中确定了希望与前任保持关系的七个主要的原因：
- Reliability/sentimentality (e.g. “They made me a better person.”).
可信赖/多愁善感（例如，“他们让我成为一个更好的人。”）.
- Pragmatism (e.g. “They had a lot of money.”).
实用主义（如“他们有很多钱”）。
- Continued romantic attraction (e.g. “I still had feelings for them.”)
持续的浪漫吸引（例如，我仍然对他们有感情）。
- Children and shared resources (e.g. “Me or my ex was pregnant.”)
孩子和共享资源（例如“我或我的前男友怀孕了”）。
- Diminished romantic attraction – which could cause a friendly relationship to lose its sexual aspect (e.g. “I lost sexual interest.”)
浪漫的吸引力减弱——这可能会导致失去性方面友谊关系（例如“我失去了性兴趣”）。
- Social relationship maintenance (e.g. “To prevent awkwardness in our friend group.”)
社会关系维护（例如“防止我们在朋友群体中的尴尬”）。
- Sexual access (e.g. “To keep having sex with them.”)
性接触（例如“继续与他们发生性关系”）。
Overall, participants rated the reliability/sentimentality reasons as most important and practical reasons as least important.
总的来说，参与者的可信赖/多愁善感的原因是最重要、最实用最重要的原因。
There were some gender differences: men gave higher scores to practical and sexual access reasons than women did. Still, when certain aspects of personality (extraversion, honesty/humility and antagonism) were controlled for, the gender difference was only slight – in other words, men and women with similar personalities tended to give similar reasons. In particular, participants of both sexes who scored more highly on the trait of antagonism and/or on extraversion, gave higher ratings to practical reasons for maintaining a friendship. Extraversion in men and women was also associated with being motivated to maintain a friendship to continue sexual encounters..
在这里有一些性别差异：男性在实用主义和性接触中的得分原因比女性高。然而，当人格的某些因素（外倾性、诚实/谦逊和敌意）被控制的时候，性别差异只是轻微的——换句话说，具有相似人格的男性和女性往往有类似的理由。特别是，在敌意和/或外倾性方面得分更高的男女参与者，为维持友谊而给予了更高的评分。男性和女性的外倾性也与为了性接触而继续维持友谊的动机相关。
Another link with personality was that people who experienced more negative emotions put a higher importance on reliability/sentimentality reasons, and continued romantic attraction. This could be because they suffer greater psychological distress during a break-up, and staying friends with an ex who can offer continued support and romantic interest may mitigate this, the researchers suggested..
与人格相关联的另一个链接是：那些经历了更多的负面情绪的人更重视可靠性/多愁善感，以及持续的浪漫的吸引力的原因。研究人员提出，这可能是因为分手期间他们会遭受更大的心理困扰，而与前任保持朋友关系，可以提供持续的支持和浪漫的兴趣。
Other work has found that friendships with former partners are common, and about half of divorced people report continued contact two and ten years after separating..
其他结果发现，与前任伴侣的友谊是常见的，大约一半的离婚者在分手后两年和十年后继续保持联系。
The new findings suggest that friendships after break-ups may provide an opportunity for ex-partners to continue to exchange desirable resources – such as love, status, information and money, Mogilski and Welling write in their paper..
这项新的研究建议，分手之后的后友谊可以为前伴侣提供继续交换愿望的机会资源，诸如爱情、地位、信息和金钱，Mogilski和Welling在论文中写道。
There are a few limitations with the study, however. The mean age of the participants was 21.4 years in the first group and 21 in the second. Arguably, university students have only limited experience on which to base many of their judgements, and relatively few will have personal experience of reasons relating to pregnancy and children. Rather than seeking participants’ general attitudes to this issue, future work could also benefit from asking people about the motives behind specific post-relationship friendships they’ve experienced..
然而，这项研究有一些局限性。第一组平均年龄为21.4岁，第二组为21岁。可以肯定的是，大学生对他们的判断有着有限的经验，相对较少的人会有与怀孕和孩子有关的个人经验。未来的工作也可以通过向人们询问他经历的特定后友谊背后的动机而受益。
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