From 2019... What Do People Do, Say, and Feel When They Have Affairs? Compared to women, men reported stronger agreement with "sex with their affair partners was better than sex with primary partners"

Has supplemental materials for What Do People Do, Say, and Feel When They Have Affairs? Associations between Extradyadic Infidelity Motives with Behavioral, Emotional, and Sexual Outcomes. Dylan Selterman. PsyArXiv, May 29 2019. 10.17605/OSF.IO/EDCBA

Abstract: Past research (Barta & Kiene, 2005) has uncovered 4 key factors associated with motivations for sexual infidelity: a) sex, b) anger, c) dissatisfaction, and d) neglect. The goal of our research was to expand on these findings‹to investigate new infidelity motivation factors and their correlates. We designed a 77-item questionnaire and administered it to a sample of people (N = 495; 259 female) who self-reported at least 1 act of sexual infidelity. Analyses revealed an 8-factor solution with an improved model fit. The factors were: 1) Anger ("I wanted to Œget back at¹ my primary partner"), 2) Sex ("My primary partner had lost interest in sex"), 3) Lack of Love ("I was not sure if I really loved my primary partner"), 4) Commitment ("I was not very committed to my primary partner"), 5) Esteem ("I wanted to enhance my social status"), 6) Situation ("I was intoxicated and I was not thinking clearly"), 7) Neglect ("I felt neglected by my primary partner"), and 8) Variety ("I wanted a greater variety of sexual partners"). Male participants were more likely to endorse items pertaining to Sex, Situation, and Variety, and less likely to endorse items pertaining to Neglect. Attachment anxiety predicted Sex, Anger, Neglect, Commitment, and Esteem motivations, while attachment avoidance predicted Anger, Lack of Love, and Commitment motivations. Sociosexuality predicted Variety motivations. Conscientiousness predicted Situation motivations. Destiny beliefs predicted Lack of Love motivations, while growth beliefs (negatively) predicted Sex and Commitment motivations. Implications for predictors of sexual infidelity are discussed.