THE SOCIAL PERCEPTION OF EXTRAMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS.
Item
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Title
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THE SOCIAL PERCEPTION OF EXTRAMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS.
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Identifier
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AAI8508736
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identifier
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8508736
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Creator
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TAYLOR, CHRISTINA J.
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Contributor
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Stanley Milgram
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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The purpose of this thesis was to elucidate beliefs about marital fidelity and extramarital sex. Two investigations were carried out which were aimed at examining how the social evaluation of extramarital relationships is affected by three situational factors--sex of the extramarital actor, the actor's physical attractiveness, and the frequency of the actor's involvement in extramarital affairs (i.e., extramarital experience). A total of 526 (265 females, 261 males) subjects (M = 34.7 years of age) participated in Experiment 1. Subjects responded to a scenario about a husband/wife who had the opportunity to engage in an extramarital affair, but did not (no affair condition), or who was engaging in their first affair (first affair condition), or who was engaging in another affair after several previous ones (many affairs condition). Photographs portrayed the actors as attractive or very attractive. Results showed that the actors were evaluated most favorably in the no affair condition, less favorably in the first affair condition, and least favorably in the many affairs condition. Males tended to evaluate husbands' extramarital affairs as more justifiable than those of wives. However, subjects did not find involvement in an extramarital affair to be very justifiable for either husbands or wives. In Experiment 2, 94 (56 females, 38 males) subjects (M = 38.3 years of age) viewed one of two videotapes of a Hollywood film about an extramarital affair. In one, information that the female character had a previous extramarital affair was included, in the other, this information was deleted by editing the film. Extramarital actors were perceived as less moral and honest than their faithful spouses. Findings also showed that subjects perceive an extramarital affair to be justifiable for a wife stuck in a bad marriage, but less justifiable when she has had a previous extramarital affair. The pattern of findings from both studies showed that marital dissatisfaction is regarded as the only justifiable reason for engaging in an affair. Observers thus construed marital fidelity in contractual terms.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
