Investigation of Attitude of College Youth towards Infidelity

Authors: [1] Anchal Garg [2] Sonakshi Ruhela

Pages: 72-75

Abstract:

Infidelity can be considered as unfaithfulness expressed by being unreliable and cheating on the partner despite the commitment. Now days, infidelity is the most common reason for breakups in a romantic relationships. As result, it has become an important issue in psychology literature which gains the attention of researchers. Moreover, infidelity has been studied within a variety of perspectives such as gender, personality, education level etc. The idea of infidelity varies across the various cultures and also depends on the type of relationship which exists between people. The present study was conducted to understand the causal factors of infidelity and the motivational factors behind the infidelity behaviour in college youth. For the purpose of current investigation, we have made the use of Attitudes towards Infidelity Scale given by Mark Whatley (2006) on 100 college students. The findings supported the need to have an explorative understanding of social networking sites that help students engage in behaviour that may be considered infidelity. The study also found out that males have more tendencies for infidelity than females and the causal factors on infidelity are boredom, immaturity, sense of security, permissive sexual attitude and parental infidelity. It was also found that motivational factors for engaging into infidelity are search for self-esteem, higher emotional involvement, need fulfilment, self-expansion and rejection sensitivity. Thus, findings hold implications for counselling clients in a dating relationship.