Still in the love festivity mood , when roses are seen everywhere on the street, with different surprise packages shared among loved ones, it would be amazing to know that even at such a time, some partners cheat a great deal on their spouses for reasons best known to them.
Although monogamy was strictly adhered to by most Christians in the past, but it is obvious nowadays that people are beginning to debate the concept of monogamy, describing it as an artificial idea, while they favour polyamory- the practice of being in a consensual relationship with several partners at once.
This was what spurred the Floridian Scholars -Jim McNulty, Andrea Meltzer, Anastasia Makhanova, and Jon Maner — all of whom are from Florida State University in Tallahassee, to embark on a study to find out why partners are likely to have wandering eyes and unsteady hearts.
The researchers who found about six predisposing factors for partners’ sexual infidelity, from their study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, worked with 233 newlywed couples, whom they followed for a period of up to 3 and half years. During the investigative period, as reported on Medical News Today ,it was said that the couples provided information about the evolution of their relationships.
Some of the predictors found for partners’ infidelity are stated below:
1. Ability of a spouse to turn his/her attention away almost immediately from the photo of an attractive person. From what the scientists termed: ‘Spontaneous and effortless’ tendencies, it was explained that those participants who were able to turn their attention away almost immediately from the photo of an attractive person were 50 percent less likely to cheat on their partners than those who took longer to enjoy the sight.
2. “Similarly, those participants who readily evaluated the physical charms of attractive individuals as low had a higher likelihood of staying in their marriage — and their marital bed”, the team revealed.
3. Age, marital satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, individual attractiveness, and a person’s relationship history, are signs to look out for. However, the scientists found that younger individuals were more likely to betray a romantic partner’s trust, and so were individuals who found little overall sense of satisfaction in their relationship.
4. The less attractive a woman is, the more her likelihood of cheating on her partner. The team actually observed an inverse correlation between a woman’s physical attractiveness and her likelihood of cheating on a romantic partner. Thus, women that the researchers deemed “less attractive” were actually more likely to opt for a little illicit fun.
5. In the same vein, they found that men were more likely to cheat if they thought that their partner did not rate very high on the physical attractiveness scale.
6. As regards sex and relationship histories, the study found men who said that they had engaged in a lot of short-term relationships before getting married were top candidates for infidelity later on.
To arrive at these findings, the Floridian scientists had subjected the participants to two psychological predictors of infidelity, which they called “attentional disengagement” and “evaluative devaluation” of potential partners.
This enabled to determine whether or not the subjects would be able to ignore an attractive stranger’s physical charms, and whether they would be disposed toward downplaying a potential romantic partner’s physical attractiveness.
TAKE AWAY
While the scientists maintained that their findings would assist couples and couple therapists to reduce the rate of broken relationships by watching out for these signs, it is our hope that partners will rate themselves on these predictors, and find means of boosting their relationships, wherever they are found wanting.
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