Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Call St. Attachment theory provides a useful framework for predicting marital infidelity. However, most research has examined the association between attachment and infidelity in unmarried individuals, and we are aware of no research that has examined the role of partner attachment in predicting infidelity.
In contrast to research showing that attachment anxiety is unrelated to infidelity among dating couples, 2 longitudinal studies of newlywed marriages demonstrated that own and partner attachment anxiety interacted to predict marital infidelity, such that spouses were more likely to perpetrate infidelity when either they or their partner was high vs. Further, and also in contrast to research on dating couples, own attachment avoidance was unrelated to infidelity whereas partner attachment avoidance was negatively associated with infidelity indicating that spouses were less likely to perpetrate infidelity when their partner was high vs.
These effects emerged controlling for marital satisfaction, sexual frequency, and personality, did not differ across husbands and wives, and did not differ across the two studies, with the exception that the negative association between partner attachment avoidance and own infidelity only emerged in one of the two studies. These findings offer a more complete understanding of the implications of attachment insecurity for marital infidelity and suggest that studies of unmarried individuals may not provide complete insights into the implications of various psychological traits and processes for marriage.
Such infidelities can have serious negative consequences for those involved. Further, the victims and perpetrators of infidelity also frequently experience negative intrapersonal outcomes, such as decreased self-esteem Shackelford, , increased risk of mental health problems e. Identifying psychological characteristics that may be associated with a risk of perpetrating infidelity may help interventions to better target such individuals.
Attachment theory e. According to that theory, intimates develop mental representations of the availability of close others that lead to strong cognitive and behavioral patterns of responding to those others. Whereas those who develop a secure attachment style tend to believe close others are available to them and behave accordingly, those who develop an insecure attachment style, i. Both types of insecurity may be associated with marital infidelity.
