How Partners Decide What Counts as Cheating

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How do we define cheating? Is keeping a secret from your partner cheating? Does flirting with someone other than your partner cross the boundary? More interestingly, what kinds of things influence our judgments of cheating?

Sex and Cultural Differences

One of the first researchers to investigate relationship cheating or infidelity was Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s and 1950s. One distinction Kinsey suggested was between emotional cheating or infidelity (falling in love with someone outside of a relationship) and sexual cheating or infidelity (having sexual intercourse with someone outside of a relationship). There seem to be some sex differences here with women more than men judging emotional exchanges as cheating, whereas men more than women judge sexual contact as unfaithful behaviour (Shackelford & Buss, 1996). Furthermore, there are also cultural differences in judgments of cheating. For example, Hungarians judge hugging as constituting cheating, whereas the Dutch judge having sexual fantasies as cheating (Buunk & Hupka, 1987).

Agency and Communion

In addition to the sex and cultural differences, researchers Victoria Thornton and Alexander Nagurney from Texas State University suggested that two other principal factors may influence people’s judgments of relationship cheating. The first of these is agency, which refers to being primarily concerned with oneself as an individual, such as having a sense of identity and individuality. The second is communion, which refers to having a focus on connecting and cooperating, and the establishment and maintenance of close relationships and attachments. Both factors in moderation lead us to a sense of well-being. However, possessing one trait more than the other is referred to as unmitigated agency or unmitigated communion, which are related to lower levels of psychological well-being (Thornton & Nagurney, 2011).

Unmitigated agency is associated with being more attachment-avoidant and having a disregard for others to concentrate on one’s own ambitions. Individuals characterised by unmitigated agency tend to be more isolated and have fewer social networks. Unmitigated communion, on the other hand, refers to putting the needs of others above one’s own and is characterised by a lower sense of identity. Overall, agency and communion are related to higher self-esteem, whereas unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion are more associated with depression.

In their study, Thornton and Nagurney asked respondents to judge whether each of the scenarios outlined below could be defined as cheating. They then compared the respondents’ judgments with their levels of agency, unmitigated agency, communion, and unmitigated communion.

• “Being in a committed, monogamous relationship while hiding a physical attachment to someone other than your partner.”
• “An intimate kiss (kiss on the lips) with someone other than your partner.”
• “Engaging in sexual intercourse with someone other than your partner.”
• “General dishonesty (lying about anything to your partner).”
• “Flirting with someone other than your partner.”
• “Sexting (the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, usually between cell phones).”

Firstly, the researchers found that, overall, women rated more of the scenarios as cheating behaviour than men did. This is consistent with the fact that women generally tend to have a stronger negative attitude toward cheating than men. The researchers explain this in terms of the risk faced by women in our evolutionary past of their male partners channeling attention and resources to other females, which back then would have posed a potential risk to women’s survival. Consequently, it would have been adaptive in our past for women to experience a strong emotional reaction to emotional infidelity in order to protect their relationships.

The researchers also found women to have higher scores on communion and unmitigated communion, in contrast to men having higher scores on agency and unmitigated agency. There was an association between unmitigated communion and judgments of cheating, whereby as scores on unmitigated communion increased, then so did judgments of cheating. The traits associated with unmitigated communion such as low self-esteem and greater dependence on a relationship, lead to higher levels of vigilance. Such individuals therefore perceive more scenarios as a threat and judge them as cheating behaviour to safeguard their relationship. Furthermore, identifying cheating early on gives a person more chance of intervening to protect their relationship.

Finally, there was an inverse relationship between unmitigated agency and judgments of cheating behaviour. In other words, higher unmitigated agency scores were related to lower judgments of cheating. Unmitigated agency is partly characterised by arrogance and greed and being generally overly absorbed with oneself. It is possible that arrogant and self-absorbed individuals may be less concerned for their relationship, ultimately perceiving cheating as less of a threat.

Real-World Applications

The researchers suggest that the findings have some real-world applications in terms of relationship personality pairings. For instance, they speculate that relationships in which both partners are high in unmitigated communion may not work well, as each partner may display characteristics of being obsessive and worried, which could result in each being in a constant state of anxiety. Neither partner is trusting and therefore able to convince the other person to be. Conversely, relationships in which both partners score high on agency and are, therefore, self-focused and confident may work well as they may be self-focused to an extent as well as focused on their relationship. Overall, the study gives us another perspective toward understanding how we perceive infidelity.

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