Motivations for Extradyadic Infidelity Revisited

Abstract

Relationship infidelities are motivated by many distinct factors, with previous research indicating motivations of dissatisfaction, neglect, anger, and sexual desire (Barta & Kiene, 2005). We expand on this by demonstrating additional, empirically distinct motivations for infidelity. Using an Internet-based questionnaire, participants (N = 495), most of whom were young adults, self-reported their infidelities. In addition to evidence for previously studied motivations, our data demonstrate additional factors, including lack of love ("I had 'fallen out of love with' my primary partner"), low commitment ("I was not very committed to my primary partner"), esteem ("I wanted to enhance my popularity"), gaining sexual variety ("I wanted a greater variety of sexual partners"), and situational factors ("I was drunk and not thinking clearly"). Our results also show personality correlates with infidelity motivations. Consistent with predictions, attachment insecurity was associated with motivations of anger, lack of love, neglect, low commitment, and esteem, while unrestricted sociosexual orientation was associated with sexual variety. Implicit beliefs (e.g., growth, destiny, romanticism) were differentially associated with sexual desire, low commitment, lack of love, and neglect. These findings highlight multifaceted motivations underlying infidelity, moving beyond relationship deficit models of infidelity, with implications for research and psychotherapy involving people's romantic and sexual relationships.

What Do People Do, Say, and Feel When They Have Affairs? Associations between Extradyadic Infidelity Motives with Behavioral, Emotional, and Sexual Outcomes

“…Participants responded to a specific instance of their own infidelity, with items assessing their motives, emotions, and behaviors during their affair. As indicated above, we developed a questionnaire to assess motivations for extradyadic infidelity in a way that allowed for people to indicate possible motives beyond poor relationship health (Selterman et al, 2019).…”

“…We reported evidence for 8 statistically distinct infidelity motivation variables: (1) Anger, or feeling upset with a partner's actions, (2) Sexual Desire, or wanting to have more sex, (3) Lack of Love, or feeling an absence of intimacy or affection for a partner, (4) Low Commitment, or not orienting actions around the future of the relationship, (5) Esteem, or a desire for greater autonomy or self-worth, (6) Situation, or clouded judgment due to intoxication or stress, (7) Neglect, or feeling mistreatment from a partner, and (8) Variety, or desiring a greater number of sexual partners. Selterman et al (2019) also reported theoretically consequential associations between these motives and individual difference factors (personality traits and gender identity). For example, sociosexual orientation, which is the degree to which people are comfortable with uncommitted or casual sex (Simpson, Wilson, & Winterheld, 2004), was associated with increased motivation to have an affair because of a desire for sexual variety.…”

“…The current study is predicated on the findings reported in our previous analysis, in which we developed a questionnaire to assess motivations for extradyadic infidelity in a way that allowed for people to indicate possible motives beyond poor relationship health (Selterman et al, 2019). In that analysis, we expanded on results from Barta and Kiene (2005), and surveyed participants on a variety of additional motivations they may have had for committing infidelity.…”

“…In this vein, we sought to further investigate a range of infidelity experiences, and to examine how these experiences vary as a function of the motives for such affairs. We utilized the questionnaire data from Selterman et al (2019), which assessed participants' infidelity experiences, to examine previously unreported findings on interpersonal outcomes of infidelity, tapping into participants' feelings of emotional intimacy, intimate dialogue, and sexual satisfaction with their affair partners, specific sexual behaviors (e.g., oral sex) during affairs, disclosure of the affair, and relationship status/breakup with their primary partners and affair partners. We sought to examine how the infidelity motives identified above might predict particular infidelity experiences.…”

“…Data were collected from an additional 67 participants who failed an attention check and were therefore excluded from analyses. We had estimated statistical power with the original goal to examine the factor structure of 77 infidelity motivation items (Selterman et al, 2019), and thus estimated a sample size of over 300 to be sufficient for a variable-factor ratio of at least 6, even if communality was low, based on simulations by Mundfrom, Shaw, and Ke (2005). Power analysis using G*Power estimates (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) also suggested that a sample of 450 would be sufficient for linear multiple regression analyses with 8 predictors to detect small effects (R 2 = .05).…”