(PS5-A7) Responses to Partner Infidelity: Associations with Own Attachment and Personality

There is limited research on the prediction of individual responses to the discovery of a partner’s infidelity. For the current study, we will explore associations between specific factors of responding to partner infidelity (Revenge, Negative Affect, and Self-Preservation) with dimensions of adult attachment (anxiety and avoidance) and personality (aggression and dependency). Data were collected from undergraduate students participating in a larger self-report survey of general experiences in relationships. For the current study, we selected only students who endorsed an experience of partner infidelity in their current or prior relationships. This resulted in a sample of 278 undergraduate students (76 male, 179 female), between the ages of 18 and 50 (62% White non-Hispanic, 13.5% Asian, 9.4% Hispanic, 7.6% Black, 1.3% Pacific Islander, .4% Indigenous, and 5.5% other/ multiracial).  

Novel items in the survey asked participants about how they reacted to the experience of partner infidelity (prompted with language regarding reactions the participant had to a partner cheating on them) on a scale from 1=Did Not Do This At All, and 7=Did This A Lot. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 3 factors: Revenge (“Give my partner hell”), Negative Affect (“Feel ugly and worthless”), and Self-preservation (“Stop having sex with my partner for a while)”.  Personality dimensions were assessed with the Scale of Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1999). Specifically, items from the Aggression (e.g., “I’ve gotten into more fights than most people”) and Dependency (e.g., “I feel a strong need to have others approve of me”) scales were summed to create scores where higher scores mean higher levels of the construct. Attachment dimensions were assessed with the Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory (ECRI, Fraley et al., 2000). Specifically, items representing attachment avoidance (“I prefer not to show my partner how I feel deep down” ) and attachment anxiety (“I worry about being abandoned”) were summed to reflect higher levels of these dimensions.  

We hypothesize that dependency and anxiety will be positively correlated with negative affect responses to infidelity, aggression will be positively correlated to revenge responses, avoidance will be positively correlated with self-preservation responses, and dependency, anxiety, and aggression will be negatively correlated with self-preservation responses to infidelity. However, the 3-item self-preservation factor showed low reliability as a scale, so interpretations of relationships with that scale will be tentative. Data is collected and will be analyzed by the time of the conference.  

It is hoped that findings will improve understanding of how attachment and personality covary with responding to the betrayal of partner infidelity, and facilitate future studies that may expand on this topic. For example, if infidelity is discovered in the midst of couples therapy, attachment and personality theory may aid clinicians in predicting how their client may respond and may help in identifying which treatment plan can best help the individual and/or couple.