The Influence Of Gender And Monogamy Attitudes On Marital Infidelity

China implements the monogamy marriage system.It is not only one of the basic principles of the Marriage Law,but also an integral part of socialism marriage and family system in China.According to monogamy,individuals shall not commit bigamy,adultery and prostitution behaviors in the duration of marriage.Moreover,long and stable marriage contributes to individual physical and psychological health,and meanwhile plays a vital role in the survival,development and reproduction of human beings.However,it is not easy to maintain the longevity and stability of marriage.Marital infidelity is an important reason which results in marital breakdown.Even though marital infidelity(including extramarital love affairs,infidelity and illegal love affairs)is drastically censured,marital infidelity is a rather commonplace cross-cultural phenomenon.Since the reform and opening-up,along with the invasion of western culture,Chinese people have more free attitudes towards sex and at the same time,premarital sex,extramarital love affairs and homosexuality become increasingly frequent.Many scholars even point out that China now is undergoing a “sexual revolution”.Under such background,the thesis intended to explore the marital infidelity phenomenon in Chinese culture and especially the influence of gender and monogamy on marital infidelity.Considering the high privacy and morality-related property of the research topic –infidelity,respondents might give false answers out of social approval and impression management.However,as proved by relevant studies,onlineinvestigation could effectively reduce the interference of social approval effects and impression management.As a consequence,three studies of the thesis were all conducted in the form of online questionnaire.In addition,sexual orientation will severely affect individual attitudes and behaviors in monogamy and sex.Because this research only targets at heterosexual married persons,the answers of respondents with non-heterosexual orientation will be regarded as invalid.The thesis had three prime purposes.The first one was to observe the existence of gender difference in marital infidelity and the role of sociosexual orientation in Chinese culture.Gender difference in infidelity seemed to be a universal conclusion.Whereas,some studies indicated that together with the shortening of gap between men and women in politics and economy,the gender difference in infidelity had also shrink.Then,when more and more Chinese women go into the workplace and the gap between men and women in social and economic status is continually narrowed,does gender difference exist in marital infidelity? Besides,many studies have found that infidelity gender difference might be caused by the different sociosexual orientation of men and women.While such proposition still lacks relevant empirical evidence.Consequently,the thesis attempted to probe into the function mechanism of sociosexual orientation in gender and marital infidelity.Secondly,even if some individuals engage in monogamy,they might not approve monogamy.Therefore,the thesis proposed the second research question – the influence of monogamy attitudes on marital infidelity.According to previous studies,it showed that men and women have different reasons for infidelity.Consequently,Study 2 respectively discusses about the problem for two genders.Moreover,the thesis expected to further examine the role of marital quality in this process and chooses four relation-related factors in investment model pursuant to previous studies.Thirdly,if previous two studies derive the conclusions about individual infidelity inclination,namely men have higher possibility of infidelity than women;regardless of gender,individuals who have low monogamy approval attitudes have higher possibility of infidelity,and the two conclusions have been testified,then another hypothesis will be proposed – whether the subjection of those risky infidelity individuals to replaceable targets with high attraction could be ascribed to their inability to effectively “devaluate” such alternatives with high attraction,or say,their weak relation maintenance mechanism? Therefore,Study 3 inquired the influence of gender and monogamy attitudes on relation maintenance mechanism in face of replaceable targets with high attraction.Additionally,referring to previous studies,this researchchose attraction grades and mate-selection intention grades in cognitive assessment as the indicators in the study about relation maintenance mechanism difference.Study 1 has the following five major findings.First of all,in present marital relation,men tended to be the actors of marital infidelity and women tended to be the victims of marital infidelity;secondly,in present marital relation,men had higher intention of infidelity than women;thirdly,in present marital relation,men had higher possibility to commit face-to-face restrictive behaviors(face-to face EDB)and online restrictive behaviors(online EDB)with others apart from their mates;fourthly,the variable of sociosexual orientation and corresponding three dimensions had significant correlation with infidelity,and the three dimensions of sociosexual orientation could all effectively predict the intention of infidelity;fifthly,sociosexual orientation had significant functions in explaining gender and predicting infidelity,among which social attitudes and desires played prominent intermediary functions.Findings of Study 2 supported the conclusions of Study 1 —gender difference indeed existed in marital infidelity,namely married men had higher infidelity intention than married women.Besides,married women more approved monogamy relation than married men,and married men had higher quality of alternatives and investment level than married women.Interestingly,in the study,married men show higher investment level than married women,but married men still have high possibility of marital infidelity.Furthermore,Study 2 had three important findings.First of all,for both men and women,emotional monogamy attitudes,sexual monogamy attitudes,satisfaction,quality of alternatives,investment level and commitment level had significant correlation with infidelity intention.Secondly,sexual monogamy attitudes and quality of alternatives played more important roles in predicting men infidelity intention,while emotional monogamy attitudes,sexual monogamy attitudes,relation satisfaction degree played more important roles in predicting women infidelity intention.Moreover,quality of alternatives mediated the relationship between the monogamy attitudes and infidelity among men;however,satisfaction was a significant mediator of the effects of monogamy attitudes on infidelity among women.Accordingly,men and women seemed to have different causes for marital infidelity,and relation factors had different function mechanisms on men and women in terms of monogamy attitudes and infidelity.Study 3 finds that firstly,married men and women had significant difference in the cognitive assessment for replaceable alternatives with high attraction.Either in attraction or in mate-selection intention,married men apparently had higher scores thanmarried women.Besides,gender could effectively predict mate-selection intention.Secondly,individuals who hold high monogamy attitudes had apparently lower scores in attraction and mate-selection intention than those individuals who hold low monogamy attitudes,and monogamy attitudes could also effectively predict attraction and mate-selection intention scores.Above results exactly further explained the results of Study 1 and Study 2.Gender difference of marital infidelity might be caused by the difference between men and women in relation maintenance mechanism: since married men have weaker relation maintenance mechanism(ability to “devaluate” such alternatives with high attraction)than married women,they could not well resist the temptation in life and possibly commit “one night stand” and other disloyal behaviors.While monogamy attitudes could effectively predict marital infidelity,Study 2 proved that married individuals with high monogamy attitudes had higher possibility to have a high commitment marriage.Study 3 proved that individuals with high monogamy attitudes had stronger relation maintenance mechanism.Therefore,those married individuals who disapprove monogamy relation could not well maintain a high-quality marital relation nor effectively resist the extramarital temptation.In this sense,it is not hard to understand why individuals who hold low monogamy attitudes would have higher possibility to commit marital infidelity behaviors.To sum up,Study 1 observed the influence of gender on marital infidelity and the function mechanism of sociosexual orientation in marital infidelity gender difference;Study 2 respectively investigated the influence of monogamy attitudes on marital infidelity and how monogamy attitudes affected marital infidelity by virtue of relation-related factors;Study 3 started with the opposite side of marital infidelity-relation maintenance to explore the influence of gender and monogamy attitudes on relation maintenance in face of replaceable target with high attraction and accordingly further testify whether the high inclination of infidelity of individuals is caused by their weak relation maintenance mechanism.In combination with the results of three studies,the thesis discovered that gender and monogamy attitudes were two important factors that affect marital infidelity.