17. The Psychology of Cheating

Why do people cheat? Is the phrase once a cheater, always a cheater correct? Where do conceptions of monogamy come from? Learn in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
changes and transitions about twenties and what they mean for
our psychology. Great another week, another episode. This week the
people have spoken and what they want to hear it

(00:26):
is drum will please. The psychology of cheating, So buckle
and friends, because I don't think this is an easy
or light topic like last week's. We are talking about dishonesty,
on faithfulness and hurt that occurs in our most precious relationships.
And if you've been cheated on, if you haven't, hope

(00:47):
you still kind of find something interesting about this. I've
kind of brought in a lot of different theories. This
one is actually really interesting to research. We've got theories
from biological psychology, behavioral psychology, personality psychology, social psychology. So
it's a bit of a doozy. Additionally, if you hear

(01:08):
some rockers in the background, it's Christmas season and for
those who know me, I live across the road from
a pub, so everyone's parting. Actually Bill Shorton there the
other day, so Bill Shorton's getting in on the Christmas spirit.
But yeah, there might be some noise filtering in doesn't matter.
We're here to learn. So yeah, the psychology of cheating.

(01:29):
So I had the statistic on this podcast I was
listening to the other day. Fifty percent of relationships will
involve an act of infidelity. And I think we hear
about cheating a lot in our twenties as an explanation
for why people have broken up or why you shouldn't
date someone. Oh you know, you know he cheating on
their last partner, like he's a scumbag, that kind of thing.

(01:50):
So let's deep dive into why. Why does this occur?
Are people who cheat bad? Bad people? Is the phrase
wants a cheat, always a cheater? Correct? I think it's
time to investigate. So cheating for those who have experienced

(02:10):
this is pretty terrible. I think it's a lot like
a big trope in movies and songs, pop culture, folklore.
We see it all around as we see it quite
often up for discussion, and I feel like it's quite ubiquitous.
But for people in those situations, I think nothing about
it feels like something someone else could understand or rationalize.

(02:31):
To you. It's one of those experiences that is common.
I would say, what we fifty percent of people or
fifty percent of relationships, but really isolating and unique in
how emotionally destructive and undermining it can be. And I
think the emotional aftermath is much like the stages of grief,
the shock, denial, anger, but hopefully the acceptance obviously pending

(02:55):
maybe some long term into personal damage. I think something
that is really interesting when we talk about cheating is
that people have different conceptions of it. Often we think
of cheating as like a physical act, but cheating isn't
just sex. It can also be emotional disclosure. And I
think we have this idea of cheating as a physical
act or sexual intimacy, and that's actually not probably I

(03:18):
would say the most important area of our romantic relationships.
Sex is just one part, but it's the emotional closeness
that sex kind of comes along with its just a
natural expression of that. So I think the thing that
we also need to talk about whilst we be talking
about physical cheating is emotional cheating, and that can kind
of look like secretive, sustained closeness with someone who's not

(03:41):
your primary partner, and in some ways I can imagine
that it's worse. Sex without emotion is not uncommon, but
a deep, at times non sexual emotional intimacy can mean
so much more and possibly undermines the relationship more than
a mere physical act. And I think the reason why
we react to physical cheating is firstly the absolutely affront

(04:04):
to notions like loyalty and trust and honesty that we
want in our romantic relationships. But also it's the idea
that sex could lead to more. It could leave to
someone leaving, It could lead to your relationship breaking down,
and that emotional intimacy between you and your partner kind
of crumbling. Interestingly fun fact, but not that fun. Men

(04:26):
tend to get more upset about physical infidelity, whilst women
are more concerned with cheating that is associated with intense
emotional disclosure, and some psychologists have suggested that this stems
from the primitive reason behind why we take partners or
accept monogamy to begin with. So men want to ensure
monogamy so that they know their offspring are actually theirs

(04:47):
for genetic purposes, whilst women, you know, biologically this is
a genetic evolutionary argument. But women they want a partner
or a mate who will be loyal and stick around
and provide support. And I think with most evolutionary explanations,
this does tend to be a bit outdated and doesn't
really keep up with how we understand gender roles in

(05:09):
reproduction and makeship nowadays. But it's still an interesting theory
from kind of an evolutionary area of psychology. I think
with emotional cheating, we do have to be careful about
calling any type of emotional attachment to someone isn't your
primary partner a form of cheating. I think it's really
important to have people who aren't your partner you can

(05:29):
share things with and that have that level of openness.
But it's about boundaries. You know, if your partner is
spending hours alone with someone having deep, meaningful philosophical conversations
about death and your parents divorce, that might upset you,
but it might not upset someone else. It's all about
what you expect from that person and how you have

(05:51):
defined the emotional boundaries of your relationship. But I can
see why that would be very frustrating and upsetting and
worth communicating about them in a healthy way. Obviously, always
using eye language as is an idea in therapy, So
let's talk about why people cheat. This is really interesting

(06:11):
from a psychological perspective. There are obviously many reasons why
people cheat, but according to this woman, Kelly Campbell, she
is I think an associate or a professor of psychology
at CSU, they usually fall into three categories. So the
reasons people might cheat might be individual, based on the relationship,

(06:31):
or situational. So when we talk about individual reasons, these
often have something to do with a person's personality, which
may make them more likely to cheat. So this is
often fact as like your personality, traits, your beliefs, your religion.
For example, someone who is narcissistic is more likely to cheat.
There was this big study of four thousand people and

(06:54):
they asked them about their sexual history, did a bunch
of personality tests and assessments, and they found this that
narcissism more likely to cheat. Side note, I did a
whole episode on this if you want to know how
to identify these narcissistic people and steer clear of them
in your dating life. But a quick summary, A narcissist

(07:15):
can't naturally feel empathy and often uses people as means
to an ends. So maybe that's their partner or the
person they're cheating with, so they may be more prone
to not being able to consider or even care about
the consequences of their sexual infidelity. I think it's often
worth noting that it would be sexual infidelity more often

(07:36):
than not, because emotional cheating would probably be verily rare
for a narcissist and someone who can't relate to other
people on an effective and emotional level. Another individual factor
is people with attachment, commitment, or self esteem issues. They
also seem to be more likely to cheat, as this
twenty sixteen study I was talking about has suggested, so

(07:57):
wanting a boost to self esteem can motivate infidelity. Having
sex with a new person, getting to know a new
person can lead to really positive internal feelings. You might
feel empowered, attractive, confident, or successful, and these feelings all
kind of build up your self esteem when you may

(08:19):
not have had much previously. People who have a hard
time with commitment may also be more likely to cheat
in some cases. I think also importantly, because commitment it
just doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. You know,
it's possible for two people in a relationship to have
very different ideas about the relationship status, such as whether

(08:40):
it's casual, exclusive, and so on. I think it's also
possible to really like someone and still fear making a
commitment to them, and in this case, one partner might
end up cheating as a way of avoiding commitment, even
if they would naturally prefer to stay in that relationship.
So this was the type of cheating. The reason people

(09:01):
cheat is from an individual perspective, and the second type
of cheating is due to relationship issues rather than something
internally about the person who's been cheating. It's about the
state of things between you as a pair, the state
of your relationship. Researchers have found time and time again
the partnerships that are characterized by dissatisfaction, unfulfilling sex, and

(09:26):
high conflict, they're often at a higher risk for infidelity. Also,
the more dissimilar partners are in terms of personality and
education level and things in common, the more likely they
are to experience infidelity. If there are unmet needs, or
this glimmering euphoria of falling in love is no longer

(09:47):
kind of sustaining your bond, cheating may become more likely
because the rush and intensity of endorphins and dopamine from
you as a partner is fading for that other person,
but still you don't have to cheat in these situations.
If you don't love someone anymore, you can always break
up with them or discuss an open relationship instead of

(10:10):
betraying your partner's trust in you or loyalty in the
monogamy of your relationship. I think that's something I always say, like,
if you're going to cheat on someone, why don't you
just break up with them? I think that's something a
lot of us think, like, why don't you just break
up with them? And this kind of leads to the
third reason people cheat, which is situational reasons. Sometimes people

(10:30):
aren't going out there looking for someone else to validate them,
looking for sex, looking for emotional disclosure, So situational reasons.
This refers to someone who cheats, but they don't have
a personality that's prone to cheating. Your relationship is fine,
but something about their environment puts them at a risk
for infidelity. So, like, consider this scenario. You're really frustrated

(10:56):
with the recent distance in your relationship. Maybe you're doing
longer stance and you're dealing with feelings of low self
estiement and your appearance, and one day, like a coworker
or someone at UNI becomes really friendly with you, and
catches you alone and says something like I'm really attracted
to you, like, let's get together sometime. You might not
choose to cheat if only one or two factors were involved. So,

(11:20):
for example, if it was just the situation, but this
combination of motivating factors, you know, the distance in your relationship,
which is a relationship issue, your feelings about your appearance
self esteem a personal individual issue, and that situational factor,
the attention of your coworker, can make infidelity more likely.

(11:41):
So which reason is the worst? I guess maybe that's
a question we want to ask, but I don't think
we're really here to pass judgment on that. I think
the emotional outcome is all the same, especially in our
twenties when many of your relationships are highly formative. A
relationship in which you've been cheated on can have many
second order consequences on your ability to trust in the

(12:03):
future and your own perceptions of commitment, which I think
is why it's so important to kind of chat about
how it's probably not your fault and don't cheat on
your partners. Maybe that's something that needs to be said.
Hopefully we all are on the same page there, But
there is another idea that we can apply to cheating
specifically why people cheat. That I found really fascinating and

(12:27):
it comes up a lot in psychology around relationships and
sex and things like that. And it's called the triangular
theory of love. So the triangular theory of love suggests
that love can be understood in terms of three components
that together can be kind of viewed as forming the
vertices of a triangle. So if you put put your

(12:47):
hands up in a triangle, I'll explain. So on one
side we've got intimacy, the next side we have passion,
and the final side we have decision and commitment. This
is what creates a good relationship. But when one of
these sides fails, for example, intimacy or you no longer
feel that passion for someone, or things like conflict and

(13:10):
cheating piers the harmony of the triangle, that's when the
relationship is probably going to fail and we might see
greater degrees of infidelity. So, talking again about this amazing
psychologist Kelly Campbell, there are a myriad of reasons that
people cheat, but she's really quick to point out in
this article that she wrote that it shouldn't actually be demonized.

(13:32):
She makes this point, we don't know if humans are
even meant to be monogamous. It's just that some people
are naturally more in line with those views and others
are not. So that's kind of the age old question
does cheating make you a bad person? And our natural
instinct might be to say, yes, of course it does.
You shouldn't cheat on someone you love when you have

(13:53):
a bond with someone, when you have agreed on exclusivity,
Not honoring that and hurting the other person is pretty terrible.
But like everything, there's a lot of gray area, and
I think in some ways there's gray area about whether
if you've cheated before that makes you a cheater for life,

(14:17):
or whether cheating on someone is forgivable. Do we kind
of allow people to make mistakes in relationships if we
can call cheating that? And something else is like what
constitutes cheating? And another huge question when really loading them
off on you is is the evil that we kind
of assign to cheating purely cultural because of the institution

(14:39):
of monogamy that's been created by property riots and the
church and religion. That's what we're going to discuss next.
The phrase once a cheatah, always a cheatah. Might not
be true. People can make mistakes, and whether they reoffend

(15:01):
our guess or cheat again on the same or a
different partner depends on how they rationalize their actions internally
and at times unconsciously, And this has a lot to
do with the psychology behind cognitive dissonance. So whether you
cheat again will depend on how you change your attitude
towards commitment or your partner after that first act. So

(15:24):
dissonance reduction following a difficult moral decision can cause people
to behave either more or less ethically in the future. So,
using the cheating example, after you cheat on someone, whether
that behavior becomes more or less likely your cheat in
the future will differ based on your attitudes and how
you attempt to justify your ethical choice. So if you

(15:48):
cheat on someone, especially if you get caught, you'll probably
feel really terrible. And if you're a good person, a
moral person, I guess it will conflict with how we
like to see ourselves trustworthy in a relationship, as good
as respected, as loyal, So we experience this dissonance between
the perception of ourselves and our actions. Cognitive dissonance is

(16:11):
the term in psychology, and we're going to try to
justify an action by minimizing aspects of the action you
have chosen. So that's one way that you get over
that dissonance of cheating. You might say, oh, it's not
that bad, everyone does it. You minimize the aspects of
the action. So someone chooses to justify their actions using

(16:32):
this logic, they will probably do it again because they
have some form of external justification or validation that is
brought on by the reinforcement of the belief that it's
not that bad because other people are doing it, because
everyone does it, because you know, what do you expect? However,
if you abscribe cheating to a personal flour and recognize

(16:54):
that that you know that maybe it's because of your
self esteem, maybe it's because you know there's tension in
your relationship that you might be responsible for, you don't
have open communication that external validation is no longer there.
If you say to yourself that you've cheated because of
situational and internal factors, you can control that behavior and

(17:17):
you can see that it was a mistake that you
don't want to make again. This is when long lasting
change is possible because you've created and you counter belief
about yourself that does not include cheating on a partner.
You've decided this is not who I am. It was
because of a situational factor or because of something I
can control, like poor levels of confidence, and I can

(17:38):
change that. So this is called self persuasion, and it
creates a long lasting attitude change that results from this
self justification. So if someone's cheated on you and you've
decided to forgive them, firstly, God bless you forgiveness always,
but if you're worried about whether they're going to cheat again,
it's probably important to talk to them about how they

(17:59):
see their now. If they say, oh, you know, it
wasn't that bad, I think it's a lot more common
than you think. I guess it was just to slip up,
they probably will do it again. But if they say, oh,
my gosh, it's just not who I am. That was
such a mistake. I think it was because of this
issue in our relationship that I want to fix. I've
decided that, like, this isn't who I want to be.

(18:21):
It was because of this, then it's unlikely that they'll
do it again. So it really depends on the route
a person chooses to take. Do they seek external or
internal justification for their actions in order to minimize their guilt.
And if that person feels no guilt, well, it might
be because the relationship, well, the relationship you're in is

(18:44):
with maybe a narcissist or someone with a pretty sinister
personality trait that has manifested in infidelity, and you probably
shouldn't stay with that person if they've hurt you and
they don't feel guilty. Red flag, big red flag, get
out of there. I think it is always important, though,
to remember that humans make mistakes, and that includes your partner.
There is no use, ever, I think, holding your partner

(19:07):
to the standard of perfection because you'll kind of always
be let down. You've got to love someone for who
they are, not who you want them to be. And
while infidelity is far from perfection, far I don't think
you should always totally write off your partner because they've
cheated in the past or they cheated before in your relationship.

(19:28):
Obviously this is your call, but like we've said, sometimes
cheating can be because of low self esteem, or they
might feel as if they need attention from someone outside
of the relationship to feel desirable or worthy. I think
that kind of makes it seem like it's your fault
that you should have been like hyping them up day
and day night. But I think it's important to recognize

(19:49):
that whilst the cheatah is ultimately at fault, there are
things that can drive someone to cheat. So while we
are evaluating the mistakes that cheats are making, it's also
important to consider the type mistakes that lead people to
cheat and whether it maybe you could have done it
as well. And if you are in a relationship, you
should be sure to kind of encourage your partner and
communicate to them that they are good enough and deserving

(20:10):
of your love. You know, I think your kind of
role is to provide the security in a relationship. But again,
not your fault. If someone cheats on you, it's not
because you didn't love them enough. That's kind of stupid.
But again I think if someone oversteps your boundary or
hurts you, like I said, not your fault, I think,
And in no way does the philosophy of people make

(20:33):
mistakes mean you should just forgive and forget, especially if
it's caused lasting damage or you think this person could
do it again. I think your peace is probably not
worth staying with them, and maybe it will cause you
guys to reassess your relationship and communicate better, but that
might not always be an option. Now, let's introduce some

(20:54):
social psychology into the mix, which is my favorite. So
we've looked at by all or evolutionary psychology. We've looked
at personality in terms of narcissism, and at behavioral psychology.
But what constitutes cheating and why is it that we
are so disproving of it? So there are obvious reasons

(21:15):
we don't like cheating, because it hurts us and it's
awful and it sucks. But is that reaction only because
we have been trained to expect monogamy? Is the rejection
of cheating behaviors something that is culturally ingrained in us.
I also think people have different conceptions of what cheating is,
and that's important to set up first. For some, if

(21:39):
their partner were to spend time with someone else in
a non sexual way, but you know, for a company,
that could be you know, something just non sexual, like
I said, that could be deemed as cheating, whereas for others,
things like kissing or floating might not be a big
deal or in context where you know, maybe they go

(22:00):
and see strippers or they're making out with a friend
or a friend of the same gender. These things may
be okay in some relationships and not others. I do
have kind of a problem with like guys being like, oh, yeah,
you know, my girlfriend like kissed another girl, but it's
not cheating, because they kind of like undervalue especially if
that woman's bisexual, because they undervalue the sexual urges, Like

(22:23):
you know, I don't know. I think it's like a
bit problematic to be like, oh, just because it's like
between two women, I'm less offended, whereas if it was
with a man, because I see women as less of
a threat because I don't actually respect my girlfriend's sexuality anyhow,
A bit of a segue, But I think that line
of what you see is cheating or not is highly subjective,

(22:45):
and it's based on what you decide as a couple.
I don't think that it's something that you can determine
by trial and error, like at all, set those boundaries
and make them clear. But kind of that second part
we're talking about, is cheating that bad and do our
reactions to it only come about because of certain social norms?
So it feels like we've spent the past century making

(23:07):
a slew of progressive social changes that kind of undermine
the sanctity of monogamy. I think it's more open and
more common for couples to talk about the nature of
their relationship than ever before, and I think we've reached
a stage where relationships aren't as black and white as
society has perhaps previously expected them to be. This is

(23:29):
something really interesting that my friend Carolina, a friend of
the show, told me. There's this idea in gender psychology
and in gender studies that monogamy arose because of laws
around property and the influence of religion. So men wanted
to ensure that the offspric they were passing their inheritance
onto were actually theirs, and so cheating became more taboo,

(23:51):
especially for women, because it would undermine male sexual, emotional, economic,
and physical authority. Also, as religious teachings made sex more
conservative and wanted it to become more sacred. This restricted
sex and intimacy into marriage, and people were shamed for
breaking that sanctity of one man, one wife and their
kind of marriage. Ben So, I think the cultural humiliation

(24:14):
and pressure not to cheat throughout history because of the
influence of these institutions and influences, has perhaps created the
feelings we have now around cheating. Obviously it still naturally
doesn't feel good, but emotions and reactions are, as we know,
culturally conditioned in many ways from your parents, from your peers,

(24:35):
from the media. And if history had promoted polyamory and
multiple sexual partners or no marriage, maybe as a way
to increase population and keep greater harmony, and that was
our history, maybe these ideas around cheating, which by the way,
it still see as pretty fucking apparent, but maybe those
ideas around cheating would be less negative in the idea

(24:56):
of sleeping with someone else or having emotional intimacy with
someone else would be more accepted. I hope that we've
enjoyed this kind of quick episode on the psychology of cheating.
I think cheating, you know, as hard as it is,
is kind of common in our twenties as we're testing
out our boundaries and how we communicate with partners and

(25:19):
kind of experiencing sex and intimacy and emotional disclosure for
the first time. We hear a lot of stories about it.
Perhaps you've experienced it, so I hope this kind of
shed some light on why it happens, the reasons around
why people cheat, but also kind of expresses that I
don't think it's ever someone's like the person who's been

(25:39):
cheated on's fault. There are so many theories that explain
why people are driven to cheat, but so few theories
that kind of put that blame on the partner. And
I think especially interesting about this is this idea of
like that culturally conditioned idea of monogamy, and whether we
would see cheating as less bad if history had been different,

(26:02):
if we didn't have the influence of property rights or religion.
Obviously that's a bit of a fantasy, but just kind
of something to think about anyhow. Another episode. I also
just want to quickly say I got my Spotify wrapped
for my podcast this year and there was just so
much love you guys. You've all been listening so much
and I really really appreciate it like a lot. I

(26:24):
think at one point we were like twenty fourth in
the charts in Australia, which is like insane considering I
recall this on my phone in my Cambra bedroom. So
thank you so much. And if you do like the
podcasts and you feel called to support it more, please
let write us a review on Apple Podcasts it really
helps the community and the show kind of grow, brings
more people into, bring new ideas, what they want to discuss,

(26:47):
and hopefully they get something out of it like you have.
So thanks again for listening. Next week we're talking about
the psychology of loneliness another sad one, so I hope
we're all ready for that. Zero