Blow and Hartnett's 2005 review examines self-reported infidelity in an attempt to get estimate the actual prevalence of the phenomenon. One major confound is the reporting differences between men and women, which are very likely to be profound (see 8/13/07): women are less likely to admit to having extra-marital affairs. However, as previously discussed, there is a strong sense that men are more likely to desire multiple partners than women (see related, below). For a specific figure, they cite Laumann et al's 1994 book: The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States, which says that 25% of married men and 15% of married women report having had extramarital sex.
Blow and Hartnett conclude that (US-only) extramarital sex "occurs in less than 25% of committed relationships, and more men than women appear to be engaging in infidelity." However, they also note that gender differences in infidelity appear to vary widely between cultures.
Cheating is the topic of my weekly poll (a feature on my personal blog), and while I've covered differences in sexual appetites several times, I didn't think I'd ever presented an estimate of infidelity prevalence. Honestly, that's a hell of a lot lower than I would have guessed, and I think it's a lower bound. I don't see any likelihood that someone is going to report infidelity that has not occured, but I see a number of reasons why they would not report infidelity that had. I know I have a great deal of observer bias on the subject, as well as a non-normative sample, but it's always seemed to me like more than half of relationships have some cheating.
related posts:
Adultery Gap, 10/28/08
Marital and Extra-marital sex, 9/18/08
Evolutionary Psychology 101, 5/30/07
The Jealous Type, 10/25/06
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2 comments:
dilletante
2008-12-19 04:03 pm UTC (link) Track This
hm, i thought reporting adultery that hadn't occurred was classically considered one of the potential pitfalls: that is, traditionally men (at least) are encouraged to brag about sexual exploits, maybe even ones they made up...
(i find it interesting that i hold this view of what's considered traditional even though it's completely at odds with both my personal behavior and my social circles pretty much all my life: in my experience women i know are more likely to talk about any aspect of sex than men i know. on the third hand, i've had a male stranger on a plane tell me about taking his wedding ring off for vacation, so...)
[info]dan4th
2008-12-19 08:43 pm UTC
I guess I figure the "bragging" depends on actually having some investment in the person asking the questions, but while I'm aware of this as a phenomenon, it's fairly outside my experience as well.
I just have a hard time picturing overreporting on the American Social Survey, since I always picture it being like the census, which as far as I know, no actual married men fill out -- their wives complete it for them. (only mostly tongue-in-cheek)
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