Nobody deserves to be cheated on by their partner – nevertheless it happens! According to a study, it most often affects people with a specific property.
Many people experience infidelity in the course of their love life. Some are cheated, others cheat and others fall in love with someone who has been cheated before and therefore has massive trust problems.
There are various theories and investigations to determine which factors favor an affair. Some focus on the relationship and look for reasons why one partner cheated on the other. Others try to analyze the personality of foreigners and derive an explanation from it. And for a change, psychologist Meghna Mahambrey from Ohio State University has now investigated who the dupes are and whether they perhaps have something in common that could explain something.
method
In total, Mahambrey asked almost 1,600 people, on the one hand about their experiences with infidelity, on the other hand about their personality. For this purpose, the participants should apply personality traits from the Big Five model to themselves and state to what extent they apply to them, i.e. H.
- Openness (e.g. adventurous, curious, curious)
- Conscientiousness (e.g. disciplined, responsible, reliable)
- Extraversion (e.g. sociable, extrovert, communicative)
- Tolerability (e.g. empathic, warm-hearted, caring)
- Neuroticism (e.g. moody, insecure, nervous)
Result
When evaluating the data, Mahambrey focused on the question of whether those who have been betrayed by a partner have similarities in their personality profiles – and indeed! 19 percent of a total of around 1,600 respondents stated that they had been cheated before, and in terms of their personality, the scientist noticed a commonality that set them apart from the rest of the test group: they described themselves as comparative slightly conscientious, d. H. rather unreliable, messy and carefree.
In a smaller subset of all respondents, those who were married at the time of the survey, those who were cheated were also less conscientious than the others, and they also had one higher tolerance from, d. H. were very warm and caring.
What does that tell us?
Cheating is and remains difficult to explain, but one thing is certain: Whoever is cheated is not to blame – at least not the only one! Certain behavior can favor relationship problems and contribute to an affair. If you give your partner the feeling that he will forgive him everything, it may make it easier for him to defraud him. And who signals "I'm not taking it so exactly anyway and you can't rely on me in case of doubt", possibly also. But the one who cheats has the freedom to choose and might as well behave differently – or should! After all, whoever loves his partner loves him the way he is and is unconditionally loyal to him. And if you don't do that, you probably just didn't deserve the other.