An Experimental Test of Jealousy's Evolved Function: Imagined Partner Infidelity Induces Jealousy, Which Predicts Positive Attitude Towards Mate Retention.

Jealousy may have evolved to motivate adaptive compensatory behavior in response to threats to a valued relationship. This suggests that jealousy follows a temporal sequence: A perceived relational threat induces state feelings of jealousy which in turn motivates compensatory behavior, such as mate retention effort. Yet to date, tests of this mediation model have been limited to cross-sectional data. This study is the first to experimentally test this theoretical model. Men and women (N = 222) who were currently in committed romantic relationships were primed with an imagined partner infidelity (versus control) scenario. Participants then completed measures of state jealousy and intended mate retention behavior. Results found that those primed with the infidelity threat scenario experienced an increase in state jealousy, which in turn predicted more intended benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate retention. Findings suggest that jealousy mediated the relationship between infidelity threat and intended mate retention behavior, supporting the evolutionary account of state jealousy.

Divergence in Chinese Sexual Attitudes: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis.

A crucial component of comprehending societal change is understanding how sexual attitudes have evolved over time. The substantial and typical changes in China have created an ideal quasi-experimental design and a wealth of empirical data for tracking the evolution of sexual attitudes. However, existing research has failed to adequately analyze the temporal trends in Chinese sexual attitudes. This study employed an age-period-cohort framework to investigate changes in public sexual attitudes, including premarital sex, extramarital sex, and homosexuality. And it further delved into these attitudes in light of two unique aspects of Chinese society: urban-rural divide and political status. It explored the contributing elements and potential processes of changing public sexual attitudes in China using data from seven waves of national social survey conducted from 2010 to 2021. The findings indicated that public sexual attitudes became more conservative with age; the period effect exhibited a fluctuating upward trend, indicating a general increase in acceptance of the three sexual attitudes; notable differences in sexual attitudes among cohorts were identified. The divergence in sexual attitudes was significantly influenced by urban-rural divide and political status.

The cuckoldry conundrum.

Concerns about cuckoldry are a dominant theme in evolutionary studies of mating, frequently used to explain sex differences in reproductive strategies. However, studies in nonhuman species have shown that cuckoldry can be associated with important benefits. These insights have not been well integrated with the human literature, which continues to focus on anticuckoldry tactics and negative repercussions for men. I evaluate two key assumptions central to human models of cuckoldry: (1) men are being tricked into investing in nonbiological offspring and (2) investment in nonbiological offspring is wasted. The ethnographic data on fatherhood shows that the concepts of pater and genitor are complex and locally constructed ideas that often include explicit knowledge of extra-pair paternity, countering the idea that nonpaternity results from trickery. Furthermore, rather than being a "waste," paternity loss can be associated with important gains for men, helping to explain why men invest in nonbiological offspring.

Relational recovery after infidelity as a dual process: A model based on the experiences of female injured partners.

In the literature, relational recovery after infidelity is often described as a process going through different consecutive stages towards a reconciliation. We interviewed 25 injured partners and invited them to look back and talk about what helped them to recover from the pain and the conflicts caused by the relational infidelity of their partner. From their stories-through thematic analysis-four themes emerged: 1. talking, 2.the truth, 3. trust and 4. ethical imbalance. It furthermore struck us how the participants described their recovery process as an experience of being oscillated between connection and disconnection. These findings pointed us in the direction of developing a dual process model that fits with our participants' experiences of recovering after infidelity, while emphasizing the dynamic nature of their stories.

Pornography Consumption and Extramarital Sex Attitudes Among Married U.S. Adults: Longitudinal Replication.

Social scientific interest in pornography use and effects dates back to at least the mid-twentieth century. Despite this, recent meta-analyses reveal a need for additional longitudinal studies, in general; a need for attitudinal studies, specifically; and a need for studies of U.S. consumers, in particular. In response to these needs and recent calls for the fields of communication and psychological science to prioritize replication, the present study probed whether Wright et al. (Psychol Pop Media 3(2):97-109, 2014) novel longitudinal findings on pornography consumption and extramarital sex attitudes among married U.S. adults were replicable. As in Wright et al., a distal assessment of extramarital sex attitudes did not predict interindividual increases in the likelihood of pornography consumption. Contrary to Wright et al., a distal assessment of pornography consumption also failed to predict interindividual increases in positive attitudes toward extramarital sex. However, more proximal measures of extramarital sex attitudes and pornography consumption did predict over time interindividual change in pornography use and attitudinal positivity, respectively, even after adjusting for participants' age, divorce history, education, race, sex, general unhappiness, martial unhappiness, liberal-conservative political orientation, and religiosity. These results are consistent with prior panel studies in the pornography literature in the macro, but also highlight a need for theoretical development (and testing) on the duration and time-course of selection and socialization effects in the context of pornography use and sexual attitudes.

No Remorse: Sexual Infidelity Is Not Clearly Linked with Relationship Satisfaction or Well-Being in Ashley Madison Users.

Past research on extradyadic relationship experiences (including infidelity) often suffers from restricted sampling and retrospective accounts, which may have given researchers a distorted image of what it is like for people to have affairs. In this research, we shed light on the experiences people have during their affairs with a sample of registered users on Ashley Madison, a website geared toward facilitating infidelity. Our participants completed questionnaires about their primary (e.g., spousal) relationships, as well as personality traits, motivations to seek affairs, and outcomes. Findings from this study challenge widely held notions about infidelity experiences. Analyses revealed that participants were highly satisfied with their affairs and expressed little moral regret. A small subset of participants reported having consensually open relationships with their partners, who knew about their activity on Ashley Madison. In contrast to previous findings, we did not observe low relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, love, commitment) to be a major driver of affairs and the affairs did not predict decreases in these relationship quality variables over time. That is, among a sample of individuals who proactively sought affairs, their affairs were not primarily motivated by poor dyadic/marital relationships, their affairs did not seem to have a strong negative impact on their relationships, and personal ethics did not play a strong role in people's feelings about their affairs.

Only Death Will Separate Us: The Role of Extramarital Partnerships among Himba Pastoralists.

Extramarital partnerships are highly stigmatized in many societies and are typically excluded from studies of family dynamics and social support. Nevertheless, in many societies such relationships are common and can have important impacts on resource security and health outcomes. However, current studies of these relationships come mainly from ethnographic studies, with quantitative data extremely rare. Here we present data from a 10-year study of romantic partnerships among a community of Himba pastoralists in Namibia, where concurrency is common. The majority of married men (97%) and women (78%) currently reported having more than one partner (n = 122). Using multilevel models comparing marital and nonmarital relationships, we found that, contrary to conventional wisdom surrounding concurrency, Himba form enduring bonds with extramarital partners that often last decades and are very similar to marital ones in terms of length, emotional affect, reliability, and future prospects. Qualitative interview data showed that extramarital relationships were imbued with a set of rights and obligations that, while distinct from those of spouses, provide an important source of support. Greater inclusion of these relationships in studies of marriage and family would provide a clearer picture of social support and resource transfers in these communities and help to explain variation in the practice and acceptance of concurrency around the world.

Conducta infiel y adicción a redes sociales en adultos de la selva peruana / Unfaithful behavior and addiction to social networks in adults from the Peruvian jungle

La adicción a las redes sociales potencia las probabilidades de infidelidad de pareja. Esta investi-gación tuvo el objetivo de determinar la relación entre conducta infiel y adicción a redes sociales en adultos de las áreas comerciales de Tarapoto, Lamas, San José de Sisa, Moyobamba y Naran-jos, región de la Amazonía Peruana, durante el primer cuatrimestre de 2021. Así, se desarrolló un estudio con diseño no experimental y tipo de investigación correlacional, en una muestra de 318 individuos con edades entre 20 y 40 años, a los que se aplicó el Inventario Multidimensional de Infidelidad y el Cuestionario de Adicción a Redes Sociales. El 62,3% de los participantes perteneció al sexo masculino, el 57,5% tenía edades entre 30 y 59 años, el 66,7% convivía con sus parejas sin estar casados y el 51,6% se encontraban en la segunda etapa de la relación de pareja. Existieron diferencias significativas entre hombres y mujeres en cuanto a la conducta infiel (U=6387,500; p<0,000). En este contexto, se observó un predominio del nivel medio de la adición a las redes sociales en los participantes y del bajo en las dimensiones de la conducta de infidelidad, estableciéndose correlación estadísticamente significativa entre ambas variables.

Addiction to social networks increases the chances of partner infidelity. This research aimed to determine the relationship between unfaithful behavior and addiction to social networks in adults from the commercial areas of Tarapoto, Lamas, San José de Sisa, Moyobamba, and Naranjos, in the Peruvian Amazon region, during the first four-month period of 2021. Thus, a study with a non-experimental design and correlational research type was developed in a sample of 318 individuals between 20 and 40 years old. The Multidimensional Infidelity Inventory and the Social Networks Addiction Questionnaire were applied. 62.3% of the participants were male, 57.5% were between 30 and 59 years old, 66.7% lived with their partners without marria-ge, and 51.6% were in the second stage of the couple relationship. There were significant diffe-rences between men and women regarding unfaithful behavior (U=6387,500; p<0.000). In this context, a predominance of the medium level of addiction to social networks in the participants and the low level in the dimensions of infidelity behavior were observed, establishing a statisti-cally significant correlation between both variables.

Healing Body and Soul: Islamic Morality, Practitioner Obligations and Extramarital Pregnancy.

Extramarital pregnancy is a scarcely explored socio-ethical topic in Muslim countries. Extramarital sexual intercourse is legally prohibited and deemed shameful by conservative Muslim societies. The legal and social implications of an extramarital pregnancy prevent access to care and lead to concealment and/or infant abandonment. This paper argues that the medical community must not become complicit in the criminalization and stigmatization of unmarried pregnant women, but must become a safe and reliable refuge instead. The paper also finds strong Islamic moral commitments that warrant the provision of confidential, non-judgmental care, and encourage compassion and forgiveness over reprimand and punishment.

What is Infidelity? A Vignette Study on Norms and Attitudes toward Infidelity.

Infidelity is more than extradyadic intercourse, but it is unclear where infidelity begins and how behaviors are related to each other. We investigated data from a factorial survey experiment implemented in the German Family Panel (pairfam). 9,104 respondents evaluated 26,633 vignettes on unfaithful behaviors including four dimensions: explicit behavior, emotional involvement, infidelity duration, and erotic online contact. Results suggest that item lists may not reveal the full picture of unfaithfulness. While intercourse is judged as unfaithful irrespective of the context, less explicit behaviors such as kisses or hugs were also regarded as infidelity. Nonphysical dimensions contributed to infidelity judgments more strongly when less explicit behaviors were evaluated. Even cases of no physical contact combined with erotic text messages and emotional involvement were evaluated as unfaithful. Women's judgments were stricter than men's, and younger respondents' evaluations were stricter than those from older respondents. No differences were found regarding the gender of the vignette character.

Comparison of Indirect and Direct Approaches to Identifying an Unfaithful Partner.

Infidelity has been operationalized inconsistently across studies, and measurement approaches have been employed that are not ideally suited for addressing the stigmatized and subjective nature of infidelity, thereby limiting the conclusions that can be drawn from this body of literature. In 2016, Thompson and O'Sullivan took a step toward addressing these shortcomings by implementing an indirect measurement approach. We extend their findings using a sample of 465 married and divorced individuals via MTurk. Substantially more participants reported having engaged in infidelity via the indirect approach than the direct approach, and results suggest that-in contrast to findings from direct questioning-similar percentages of men and women engage in self-defined infidelity. Implications for research and clinical practice are provided.

Is Infidelity Contagious? Online Exposure to Norms of Adultery and Its Effect on Expressions of Desire for Current and Alternative Partners.

Research exploring the determinants of infidelity has mainly focused on individual and relationship characteristics that render relationships vulnerable, paying less attention to the external circumstances that increase the likelihood of straying. The present research examined whether online exposure to norms of adultery would affect expressions of desire for alternative mates. In three studies, romantically involved participants were exposed to others' cheating behavior and then thought of or encountered attractive strangers. Their relationship perceptions and reactions during these experiences (fantasmatic themes, expressed interest in alternative partners, and overt flirtation with them in Studies 1-3, respectively) were recorded. Results showed that following exposure to others' cheating behavior, participants were less likely to devalue the attractiveness of alternative partners and to be committed to their relationship. These findings suggest that exposure to adultery norms decreases the awareness of long-term priorities of relationship maintenance, lessening the resistance to the temptation of attractive alternatives.

Diversity in the prevalence and correlates of extramarital sex in a probability sample of Latino adults.

Individuals from different Spanish-speaking countries are often combined into a single Latino group. However, this group is diverse, with immigrants and naturalized citizens coming from multiple countries. The present study was conducted to (a) examine potential differences in the annual prevalence of extramarital sex as a function of cultural group (Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, or other Latino) and nativity (born inside or outside the United States) and (b) identify explanations for any observed differences in the prevalence of extramarital sex, drawing on known correlates of extramarital sex and other psychosocial constructs that may be associated with cultural group or nativity that could account for such associations. Results from the National Latino and Asian American Study, a probability sample of Latinos in the United States, indicated that the annual prevalence of extramarital sex was significantly higher among (a) Puerto Ricans relative to Mexicans and (b) foreign-born individuals relative to those born in the United States. Probability of extramarital sex was significantly associated with marital satisfaction and frequency of religious attendance, but these variables did not account for the subgroup differences in the prevalence of extramarital sex. Marital adjustment, acculturation (English proficiency and use), enculturation (ethnic identity), and family cohesion were not significantly associated with probability of extramarital sex. Results underscore the need for continued research on understanding subgroup differences in the prevalence of extramarital sex within the diverse Latino community and identifying characteristics that account for such differences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A manless adultery: the story of Bassa as related in a Marcus Valerius Martialis' epigram.

During the Golden Age of the Roman Empire, Rome was transformed into a magnificent city where architecture, the arts, and commerce flourished. An inconceivable amount of wealth was accumulated by a handful of noble families, while the masses starved. In such a context, moral values inevitably decline, while sexual mores are liberalized and ever more veer towards salacity. This reality was elegantly illustrated in short, often sarcastic poems known as epigrams. Herein, we present a case of a woman with enigmatic appearance of the external genitalia, exhibiting unrestrained homosexual activity, as described in an epigram by Marcus Valerius Martialis (a contemporary poet who lived in the 1st century AD). Based on the information provided in the ancient text, we formulate a differential diagnosis and deduce that this woman was, in fact, a case of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). To our knowledge, this is the earliest literary description worldwide of a case of CAH as a cause of homosexuality and unquenchable lust.

Exploring Links Between Online Infidelity, Mate Poaching Intentions, and the Likelihood of Meeting Offline.

This study examines digitally enabled mate poaching on Ashley Madison, an online dating platform for extradyadic affairs. To explore mate poaching as a potential explanation for what drives users of Ashley Madison to transition their online relationships to offline encounters, we conducted a multinational survey of 1,676 users (88.5 percent male, Mage = 50.98). Participants provided open-ended data about their mate poaching objectives, which ranged from short-term sexual encounters to long-term sexual and emotional affairs and new exclusive relationships. Structural equation modeling showed that participants' attitudes toward online infidelity predicted whether they would consider meeting someone from the website in person. Mate poaching intentions also mediated the effect of attitudes toward online infidelity on the likelihood of meeting another user face to face in the future. The results extend evolutionary theories of mate poaching to the digital dating environment and demonstrate the value of these perspectives for explaining relationship initiation practices on infidelity websites.

Factors Affecting the Public Acceptance of Extramarital Sex in China.

There is a lack of quantitative studies on the acceptance of extramarital sex in China. Based on data from the Chinese General Social Survey 2013 (CGSS2013), this paper used a zero-inflated Poisson regression model to analyze the factors influencing the public's attitudes toward extramarital sex. When other variables were controlled, groups of younger ages, higher educational levels, and stronger tendencies toward "liberalization" and non-Islamic beliefs were more tolerant toward extramarital sex, whereas gender and Christian beliefs had no significant influence. In this regard, family and marriage counseling, and society's moral tolerance and social control of religion are discussed, and further research on cross-cultural verification is needed.

Sex and Its Discontents: How Moral Incongruence Connects Same-Sex and Non-Marital Sexual Activity with Unhappiness.

A growing body of research has demonstrated how the link between pornography use and various manifestations of psychological distress and dissatisfaction is explained by moral incongruence-the experience of violating one's deeply held moral values. The predictive power of moral incongruence, however, has yet to be applied to other sexual activities. Drawing on data from available waves of the General Social Surveys (1988-2018: nmen = 6590, nwomen = 7047; 1989-2018: nmen = 3558, nwomen = 4841), this study extended moral incongruence theory by testing whether engaging in same-sex or non-marital sexual activity when one rejects either as morally wrong is associated with a greater likelihood of reporting unhappiness. Analyses demonstrated that American men (but not women) who reported engaging in same-sex sex in the previous year were more likely than other men to say they were unhappy, but only if they viewed homosexuality as "always wrong." Analyses also showed that American women (not men) who reported higher frequencies of non-marital sex in the previous year were more likely than other women to report being unhappy, but only if they viewed non-marital sex as "always wrong." Though nuanced by gender, findings affirmed expectations from moral incongruence research: Sexual behavior per se is not associated with unhappiness, but moral inconsistency or conflict regarding one's sexual behavior is.

Timing, number, and type of sexual partners associated with risk of oropharyngeal cancer.

BACKGROUND: Case-control studies from the early 2000s demonstrated that human papillomavirus-related oropharyngeal cancer (HPV-OPC) is a distinct entity associated with number of oral sex partners. Using contemporary data, we investigated novel risk factors (sexual debut behaviors, exposure intensity, and relationship dynamics) and serological markers on odds of HPV-OPC. METHODS: HPV-OPC patients and frequency-matched controls were enrolled in a multicenter study from 2013 to 2018. Participants completed a behavioral survey. Characteristics were compared using a chi-square test for categorical variables and a t test for continuous variables. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) were calculated using logistic regression. RESULTS: A total of 163 HPV-OPC patients and 345 controls were included. Lifetime number of oral sex partners was associated with significantly increased odds of HPV-OPC (>10 partners: odds ratio [OR], 4.3 [95% CI, 2.8-6.7]). After adjustment for number of oral sex partners and smoking, younger age at first oral sex (<18 vs >20 years: aOR, 1.8 [95% CI, 1.1-3.2]) and oral sex intensity (>5 sex-years: aOR, 2.8 [95% CI, 1.1-7.5]) remained associated with significantly increased odds of HPV-OPC. Type of sexual partner such as older partners when a case was younger (OR, 1.7 [95% CI, 1.1-2.6]) or having a partner who had extramarital sex (OR, 1.6 [95% CI, 1.1-2.4]) was associated with HPV-OPC. Seropositivity for antibodies to HPV16 E6 (OR, 286 [95% CI, 122-670]) and any HPV16 E protein (E1, E2, E6, E7; OR, 163 [95% CI, 70-378]) was associated with increased odds of HPV-OPC. CONCLUSION: Number of oral sex partners remains a strong risk factor for HPV-OPC; however, timing and intensity of oral sex are novel independent risk factors. These behaviors suggest additional nuances of how and why some individuals develop HPV-OPC.