{"id":627842,"date":"2024-11-18T18:43:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T23:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=627842"},"modified":"2024-11-22T08:50:43","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T13:50:43","slug":"power-dynamics-infidelity-relationships-627842","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/power-dynamics-infidelity-relationships-627842\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the powerful are more likely to cheat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychologists have found a correlation between a person\u2019s self-perception of power and their (un)willingness to remain faithful.<\/h2>\n

Being a captain of industry, a politician, or a celebrity won\u2019t automatically make you a cheat. But chances of infidelity are significantly higher among the more powerful, according to a new study<\/a> published in Archives of Sexual Behavior<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Psychologists from Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, and the US-based University of Rochester<\/a> conducted a series of experiments and discovered that power dynamics play an important role in how people feel and behave when it comes to being faithful to their spouses or significant others.<\/p>\n

Why? Prior research<\/a> has established that feeling and being perceived as powerful can make people feel more confident and entitled\u2014and likely to act more impulsively. Previous studies<\/a> have shown that those who possess relatively greater degrees of power have more potential to influence, change, or control another person, or, conversely, to resist another person\u2019s efforts to influence them.<\/p>\n

The new study adds to the body of existing research by applying it specifically to intimate relationships, finding that those who feel more powerful are less dependent on others, think more highly of themselves, and are more confident that others find them desirable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a romantic relationship, these power dynamics might lead the more powerful partner to think they bring more to the table than their less powerful partner,\u201d says lead author Gurit Birnbaum<\/strong><\/a>, a professor of psychology at Reichman University. \u201cThe more powerful might see this as a sign that they have more options outside the relationship and are more desirable partners in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four tests of relationship power dynamics<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The researchers conducted a series of four studies to test how perceptions of relationship power influence a person\u2019s interest in alternative partners. They recruited participants who were in monogamous, heterosexual relationships of at least four months.<\/p>\n