The Infidelity Paradox
Article by Noam Shpancer, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Otterbein University and Clinical Psychologist practicing in Columbus, Ohio.
WHY DO PEOPLE cheat in their relationships? Popular arguments include that people who have affairs feel neglected by their partner, are unhappy or angry with their spouse, or have otherwise fallen out of love.
New research presents evidence for a simpler answer: people may have sex outside of their relationship just because they want to have more sex.
Social psychologist Dylan Selterman of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues surveyed registered users of the website Ashley Madison, which facilitates extramarital affairs — unmarried partners included. Interesting findings include a lack of guilt over having affairs, a feeling that cheating did not have anything to do with how much individuals love their spouse, and the expectation that an affair would not affect the quality of their primary relationship.
In the study, two groups of participants completed surveys three months apart. A smaller third sample was matched across the two occasions, allowing for some longitudinal analyses.
The first group included 810 respondents, mostly men, with an average age of 51, and who were in a committed relationship. The second group consisted of 868 participants, also mostly men of similar age and relationship status. The third sample included 234 similar participants.
Selterman and his colleagues asked the participants questions about infidelity, including their history of affairs, enthusiasm about finding affair partners, the quality of their relationships and their affair (both sexually and emotionally), their satisfaction in life, their level of regret, their motivation for seeking an affair, and more.
Most participants had had affairs before. This was, after all, a study of people using a website that facilitates affairs, but infidelity is common among the general population as well. Estimates show that 20 to 25 percent of married people and 3.3 percent of young adults in relationships have affairs.
Why People Cheat
According to those in the study, the quality of their relationship was not a significant driver of their desire for an affair. Moreover, relationship quality did not decrease as a function of having an affair, they reported, nor did it make divorce more likely (most participants reported that their partners did not know about the affair.)
In terms of life satisfaction and self-esteem, those who cheated did not score differently from those who remained faithful, researchers found in the three-month follow-up.
Sexual needs, rather than relationship needs, appear to drive the desire for affairs in this study. Approximately half of the participants across the samples said that they were not currently sexually active with their partners. Sexual dissatisfaction in their relationship was the top reason people chose to look for affairs. Other commonly cited reasons included low commitment to one's partner, wanting autonomy, and a desire for a variety of sexual partners.
These findings contradict both previous research and conventional wisdom. Existing research in the field has hypothesized a "deficit model" of infidelity, which assumes that cheating is often a result of problems in a relationship. Moreover, it is commonly assumed that those who commit infidelity will often be dogged by a guilty conscience and emotional upheaval because of their transgression.
Indeed, among the least reported reasons for wanting an affair were feeling a lack of love towards one's partner, anger with one's spouse, and feeling neglected, according to the study. Participants also stated that they enjoyed their affairs, both physically and emotionally, and had few regrets about their infidelity.
The Infidelity Paradox
How can people feel both happy in their relationship and willing to cheat on their spouse?
One reason may be that the relationships of the cheaters resembled those of the non-cheaters.
Those who had affairs did not report having worse relationships and did not behave differently in their relationships compared with those who remained sexually exclusive. Those more satisfied with their relationships felt no more regret over their infidelity than those less satisfied. Further, as mentioned, cheating without being caught didn't affect the quality of the relationship, according to the study's participants.
To be clear, the study has several limitations. For one, it is based on self-reporting, which is often prone to inaccuracies, particularly when sexuality is concerned. Moreover, the sample is skewed toward middle-aged, heterosexual males, which may not be representative of the general population. Many participants reported ambiguity about the exclusivity status of their relationship, which may further muddy the results. Finally, the participants were found through the Ashley Madison website, That may make them a significantly distinct cohort compared with the general population.
Still, the results suggest that infidelity may be more psychologically nuanced than previously believed. Marriage and long-term relationships come with compromises and trade-offs, and many marriages are painful. The data suggest that we may want to question some common assumptions about links between infidelity and relationship quality, and about moral consistency in intimate relations.
In the end, relationships, and the people in them, can be complex. Humans often behave in ways that contradict both conventional wisdom and common sense. We can also be quite simple. Sometimes, the sex is just about the sex.
Noam Shpancer, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a practicing clinical psychologist in Columbus, Ohio.