Is an extended hug thought of infidelity? Study says sure, however solely in the fitting context

Researchers at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich have examined the conditions under which behavior is recognized as infidelity. In addition, they wondered if there are combinations of behaviors that count as infidelity together but not independently.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Sex Research, suggest that infidelity is not simply having sex outside of a relationship. Infidelity is a complex issue, often determined by context and compound behavior. The study measured four facets of infidelity: explicit behavior, emotional involvement, online contact, and duration.

The research found that intercourse and kissing are two explicit behaviors that typically count as infidelity. Her work also showed that long hugs and no physical contact were often viewed as acts of infidelity when coupled with emotional involvement, erotic online content, and long duration.

When their data were broken down by gender, they unexpectedly found that there was no difference between men and women in what was identified as infidelity.

This study defines infidelity as “a sexual and/or emotional act committed by a person within a committed relationship when such act occurs outside of the primary relationship and constitutes a breach of trust and/or a violation of agreed norms (overt and covert) by one or both people in that relationship in terms of romantic, emotional, or sexual exclusivity.”

Behaviors that fit this definition are detrimental to human relationships and human happiness. In addition, children, parents, siblings, and friends are often caught up in the consequences of these behaviors.

Previous research on this topic has focused on why infidelity occurs, what its consequences are, and how common it occurs. Christian Bozoyan and Claudia Schmiedeberg attempted to expand our understanding of infidelity by identifying what behaviors count as infidelity.

The study participants were taken from the so-called German Family Panel. This panel contained 12,000 randomly selected residents of Germany. This study secured 9,104 participants, 53% of whom were women. The sample was also split by age, with 17% born in the 1970s, 30% in the 1980s, 27% in the 1990s, and the final 26% in the 2000s.

Participants read a provided vignette and determined whether the behavior described qualified as infidelity. The researchers had a cache of 26,633 vignettes describing both sexes as explicit behaviors (intercourse, kissing, long hugs, or no physical contact) in various contexts that may have involved emotional involvement, online erotic content, or long-term involvement. Each participant received nine randomly selected vignettes. All vignettes were used in the study.

The results reveal the landscape of complex infidelity judgments. The probability that intercourse would be counted as infidelity was almost 100%; that was true under all circumstances.

On the other hand, kissing is more likely to be identified as infidelity when emotional involvement, online erotic contact, and long duration also apply. The likelihood drops when the kissing occurs with only two contextual factors, then one, then none. Likewise, when there is emotional involvement, online erotic behavior, and long relationship tenure, someone is 80% likely to call a long hug infidelity. The probability drops to 11% if none of these factors are present.

This large sample of data revealed some other interesting trends. First, the younger a person was, the more likely they were to identify something as infidelity, particularly in the case of online erotic behavior. This is surprising as most believe younger generations are more fluid and compromise with their sexual behavior.

Second, they found no difference between men and women when assessing whether the behavior of female characters in the vignettes led to infidelity. This contradicts the theory of evolution, which states that males are likely to judge women’s sexual behavior more severely than males and would be less concerned about emotional relationships since there would be no chance of pregnancy. In this study, men and women found emotional involvement equally.

There were some identified limitations of the study. Almost 100% of the sample consisted of German citizens; There is no way of knowing if these results would be consistent across cultures. In addition, the age cohorts prevent conclusions about generational or developmental differences. They cannot conclude from these data whether the younger generation strictly observes infidelity based on age or whether it is an artifact of their specific generation.

This research adds to our understanding of this topic. It suggests that future research on infidelity will recognize that sexual intercourse is not the only behavior that leads to allegations of infidelity.

The study “What is infidelity? A vignette study of infidelity norms and attitudes” was published on August 3, 2022.