Till death do us apart? The impact of social recognition of relationships on fidelity

Kerem Kemal Soylemez 1, * and Marina Rachitskiy 2

1 Department of Psychology, Regent’s University London, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NS United Kingdom.
2 School of Psychology, University of Roehampton London, Roehampton Ln, London SW15 5PH United Kingdom.
 
Research Article
International Journal of Science and Research Archive, 2023, 09(02), 370–382.
Article DOI: 10.30574/ijsra.2023.9.2.0578
Publication history: 
Received on 12 June 2023; revised on 21 July 2023; accepted on 24 July 2023
 
Abstract: 
Although relationship satisfaction has been widely explored, there is a gap in the literature on how factors such as the legal recognition of relationships, relationship orientation and gender affect intentions to engage in infidelity. This study aimed to explore the effect of the legal recognition of relationships, relationship orientation and gender on intentions to engage in infidelity, while controlling for relationship satisfaction. Three hundred forty-seven participants were recruited. The participants were aged between 22 to 79 years (M=41.48, SD=10.16) and in a relationship between 5 and 59 years (M=15.21; SD=9.41). The countries where the participants were raised were split into three categories: no, partial and full legal recognition. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale Short form, The Relationship Assessment Scale, The Intentions Towards Infidelity Scale were utilised. ANCOVA indicated that legal recognition is an important factor in intentions to engage in infidelity, furthermore females in heterosexual relationships from countries with full recognition had lower intentions to engage in infidelity. This study aimed to give direction for future research by highlighting the similarity of homosexual and heterosexual relationships when legitimised and focused more on gender differences.
 
Keywords: 
intentions to Engage in Infidelity; Legal Recognition of Relationships; Relationship Orientation; Gender; Infidelity. 
 
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Copyright © 2023 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0