Breakup Likelihood Following Hypothetical Sexual or Emotional Infidelity: Perceived Threat, Blame, and Forgiveness

Summary & key facts

The researchers asked 92 couples to answer questionnaires about imagined sexual and emotional infidelity. They found that how much the incident was seen as a threat to the relationship was the main predictor of whether people said they would break up. Forgiveness partly explained that link for both sexual and emotional infidelity. For emotional infidelity, blame was tied to forgiveness and to breakup, and the link from blame to breakup worked through a step the authors called “keeping less distance.” The patterns were similar for women and men.

Key facts:

• The study sample was 92 couples who completed questionnaires about hypothetical sexual and emotional infidelity.
• Perceived threat to the relationship was the strongest predictor of reported likelihood of breakup for both men and women.
• Forgiveness partly mediated (partly explained) the effect of perceived threat on breakup for both sexual and emotional infidelity.
• For emotional infidelity only, the amount of blame people reported was associated with both forgiveness and breakup likelihood.
• In the statistical model, the effect of blame on breakup for emotional infidelity was fully mediated by a variable the authors labeled “keeping less distance.”
• The analyses used structural equation models to test how threat, blame, forgiveness, distancing, and breakup likelihood related to each other, and the mechanisms were highly similar for men and women.

Abstract

Abstract Infidelity represents a major threat to relationships, often resulting in dissolution of couples. The process from infidelity to potential breakup was studied in 92 couples using questionnaires concerning hypothetical scenarios of sexual and emotional infidelity. Structural equation model analyses using couple data for both infidelity types suggest that the level of perceived threat to the relationship was the main predictor of likelihood of breakup for men and women. Following each type of imagined infidelity, this effect was partly mediated by forgiveness. For emotional infidelity, level of blame was associated with forgiveness and breakup. The effect of blame on breakup was fully mediated by keeping less distance. The mechanisms involved in these processes were highly similar for women and men.

Topics

Attachment and Relationship Dynamics Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior Marriage and Sexual Relationships

Categories

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Blame Breakup Counterfactual thinking Developmental psychology Forgiveness Psychology Social psychology