Psychology: study reveals eight key reasons why people cheat

psychology
Study reveals eight key reasons why people cheat

Understanding things is generally known to help you accept them and make peace. Admittedly, knowing the motivation behind it sometimes makes things even worse, but let’s focus on the normal case. Cheating is usually one of those actions that we find difficult to understand. After all, everyone knows that an affair is the ultimate breach of trust and usually at least one person is deeply hurt by it. Nevertheless, infidelities happen again and again – and very few “guilty parties” are empathic and ruthless villains.

Of course, the reasons that move people to take this step are individual and in some cases can be very different. It is therefore almost impossible to ever fully understand “cheating” as such – at best, we can understand a very specific affair if those involved describe and explain their situation to us. Nevertheless, of course, nothing speaks against dealing with the “cheating” and looking for patterns and abnormalities. Because the more we know about it in general, the easier it will perhaps be for us to understand and classify individual cases – and to make our peace.

Study reveals eight key motivations for cheating

For a new study, psychologists interviewed almost 500 people who had cheated before to have, to their strangers’ motifs. Instead of focusing on certain factors such as deficiencies in the relationship or personality traits of the cheater, they asked the test subjects the open-ended question, “Why did you do it?” From the large number of responses, they were able to identify eight key reasons to which all the information could be assigned. In fact:

1. Anger

According to this study, a typical motive for cheating is acute or chronically suppressed anger towards the: the partner: in. Many said that their affair was a reaction to an affair with the other – or to a quarrel, a smoldering conflict …

2. Self-worth

“I wanted to feel better”, “It made me feel more independent” – many of the answers people gave in this study related to their self-esteem and suggested that they might lack reassurance and appreciation in everyday life .

3. Not enough love

According to this survey, another common motive for cheating is uncertainty about one’s own feelings for the person with whom one is with. For example, some of the test subjects said things like: “I didn’t know if my darling was really the one for me.”

4. Lack of commitment

If there is not enough clarity within a relationship about how serious both parties are with the partnership, according to the study, this apparently increases the likelihood that one of the people involved will abandon or go in two directions. It may not always have to be the ring on the finger, but a recognizable intention to grow old together is apparently required so that both feel obliged to be faithful.

5. Need for variety

Boredom, monotony, a lack of variety, as expected, can also motivate an affair – and it did so in the test group of this study.

6. Rejection

Whoever feels rejected by the treasure, looks for closeness in another person. Many of the respondents gave something like: “My: e partner: I was emotionally distant” or “did not let me get close to them” as the reason for their affair.

7. Sexual Desire

Although only one of several motives, but also what may be assumed by some to be the most important reason for an affair, was mentioned with significant frequency: If the sex life in the partnership does not correspond to the wishes and ideas of both parties, it increases the likelihood that one will cheat.

8. Situation

Films and series usually come not only from the imagination, but are also inspired by reality. And so the psychologists identified a situational, mental derangement as the eighth motive for cheating, for example due to too much alcohol or excessive stress, which has left the side-jumpers standing next to him.

Conclusion: what does that tell us now?

At first glance, the matter of an affair usually seems relatively clear: Anyone who cheats on another person and violates their trust in such a painful way can expect to be convicted and does not deserve pardon. Guilty, case on file. But the eight mentioned motifs alone, which, mind you, are only patterns and abstractions of real cases with real feelings and stories, indicate that the topic becomes much more difficult and complex at second glance – and that possibly most people accept it under certain conditions Cheats: could be inside.

Sources used: Psychologytoday.com

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