What are the attitudes and behaviours of University students regarding emotional and sexual infedility?

Abstract

The main aim of this dissertation was to explore the attitudes and behaviours towards infidelity among Maltese university students (N = 654). The Infidelity Questionnaire developed by Yeniçeri and Kökdemir (2006) was used to obtain the perception of the causes of infidelity for male and female students. Main findings illustrated that 19.1% of students were unfaithful in an intimate relationship. Students who were unfaithful scored higher on the likert scale on the different items of the infidelity questionnaire than those who were faithful. Participants who practised religion were significantly more faithful than participants who did not. Furthermore, participants who had adulterous parents were significantly more permissive than participants whose parents were faithful. Female students scored significantly higher than males in the level of distress caused by emotional and sexual unfaithfulness. Both genders were more distressed about sexual as opposed to emotional infidelity. Additionally, female participants gave more importance to items related to sensation seeking as causes of infidelity than did male participants. Furthermore, students? construction of the importance of unfaithful behaviour varied according to the gender of the betrayer, with sexual reasons more tolerated if the betrayer were male.