Search

The Scottish Law Commission has recently confirmed in its Eleventh Programme of Reform, published in May 2023, the continuation of its medium-term project to examine the law of homicide. This includes a review of sexual infidelity killings and provocation as a partial defence to murder, or otherwise. It embraces a critique of whether and, if so, how any necessary proposals for modernising the law in this sensitive and important area should be made. A Discussion Paper has previously been published for examination. Against this backdrop, we analyse whether sexual infidelity ought to be retained in extant Scots law, as one of only two relationally relevant qualifying triggers. In November 2023, the Law Commission in England and Wales announced its forthcoming review of domestic homicide given contemporary understandings of the impact of domestic abuse. We provide novel insights into Anglo-Scottish law to seek to recalibrate the understanding of coercive/controlling behaviour in the contextualisation of sexual infidelity killings. Our review highlights the ways in which allegations of (actual or perceived) sexual infidelity may be symptomatic of coercive control through consideration of recent case law, and via the lens of Monckton-Smith's eight stages to femicide. A risk assessment is utilised to demonstrate the extent to which victims of coercive controlling behaviour have their capacity for action delimited, and how this should inform deliberations in cases where the coercively controlled individual kills in response. A novel and original new template is promulgated for provocation reform predicated de novo on qualifying triggers of domestic abuse and gross breach of trust and with a part-justificatory – part excusatory standardisation. It is suggested that a new nomenclature and typology is required as extant Scottish law on provocation is out of step with contemporary social mores, and the law in England and Wales does not adequately address contextual factors, such as, ethnicity, culture, religion, sexuality, disability, and migrant status, which impact on a domestic abuse victim's capacity for action. It is further propounded that a social entrapment lens, drawing on initiatives crystallised from New Zealand and Australian academician perspectives, ought to be enacted as part of urgently needed effective remedial legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual well-being plays an important role in the quality of life. Against this background, we provide an economics-based approach to the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and various dimensions of sexuality. From a theoretical viewpoint, personality influences sexual well-being not only by how a person feels about sex, but also by how the person behaves in a sexual relationship. Personality shapes information sharing about sexual preferences, the way dissonant sexual preferences of the partners are handled, and the extent to which a person is committed to promises made to a partner. Using a large representative dataset from Germany, we find that personality traits play a role in a person's own sexual satisfaction, in (the self-assessment of) fulfilling their partner's sexual needs and desires, in sexual communication, in actual and desired frequency of sex, and in extradyadic affairs. Conscientiousness contributes to a mutually beneficial sex life and increases a person's commitment to their partner. The opposite holds true for neuroticism. While extraversion and openness to experience help realize a mutually beneficial sex life, we find no evidence that they have a commitment value. On the contrary, extraversion is associated with lower commitment to the partner. Agreeableness contributes to higher commitment. However, agreeableness appears to make people more reluctant to express their sexual needs and desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to identify and classify the consequences of marital infidelity in Iranian society. In this research, 78 scientific articles in Iran that deal with the issue of marital infidelity were identified and analyzed by qualitative meta-synthesis method. All the findings of these articles were extracted and analyzed and classified in a multi-stage coding process. The results of this research showed that marital infidelity in Iran has various consequences. These consequences can be categorized into at least eight different categories, which include the following: 1. Emotional and Psychological Consequences, 2- Cognitive Consequences, 3- Family Consequences, 4- Social Consequences, 5- Economic Consequences, 6- Individual Consequences, 7- Physical Consequences, and 8- Consequences on Children. Each of these 8 categories of consequences is itself divided into smaller types of consequences. The present study has tried to study and analyze these consequences. Finally, these consequences and its subcategories are presented in the form of a conceptual model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basic goal of this research was to examine demographic correlates of motivation for infidelity. It was conducted on a convenient sample consisting of 110 male participants. Participants were tested online and they were categorized by different age groups. The data used was based on gender, age, length of intimate relationships, marital status and religion. In order to establish the extent of infidelity The scale for examining motives of infidelity in love relationships (Stojkić, Solaković, 2017) were used. The results have shown that there are significant differences between men of different generations in terms of infidelity. Also, there is significant correlation between infidelity and length of intimate relationship, age and religion. On the other hand, there is no correlation between motivation for infidelity and marital status.

Data from the National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were used to analyze relationships between sexual infidelity and intimate partner violence (IPV). A biosocial perspective was advanced and compared to criminological theories. General estimating equations, fit for repeated observations of binary outcomes, were used to estimate the impact on the odds of IPV changing between waves 3 and 4 of the data in response to changes in experiences with infidelity. Analyses suggest that socioeconomic factors of educational attainment and employment may serve as mitigating variables in the perpetration of IPV. Men were more likely to cheat, but less likely to perpetrate IPV when employed full-time. Women were more likely than men to report perpetrating IPV but were less likely to respond violently to infidelity as their educational attainment level increased. Cohabiting and children increased the risk of IPV for men and women and were not found to modify the link between infidelity and IPV for either sex. Findings were largely consistent with the expectations of a biosocial perspective but also offered mixed support for criminological theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this instrumental study was to design and validate a scale that assesses people's perception regarding the four infidelity dimensions--sexual, emotional, cognitive, and virtual-- through two cognition sub-dimensions: reasons and consequences. Method: To do this, a specifications table was made, and the items were built, which were subjected to judges' validation. The scale was adjusted and implemented for a voluntary sample of 301 participants, aged 18-70 (X = 29.84, DE = 14.07), who had basic reading comprehension cognitive skills. Results: After the exploratory factor analysis, seven factors were found that explained 48.64% of the total cumulative variance, and the extraction rate allowed all items to remain and confirmed factorial model, with adequate goodness of fit levels of adjustment (CFI = 0.910, RMSEA = 0.049). In addition, the general Cronbach Alpha of 0.84 showed a high reliability of the scale, and with a coefficient of two Guttman halves of .87, a strong relationship was found between the two halves. Conclusion: The Cognitive Infidelity Assessment Scale is a pioneering tool that allows the evaluation of the infidelity phenomenon with valid and reliable criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines moral hypocrisy and the self-serving bias (SSB) in the sexual infidelity context. We found evidence of self-serving attributions that occur between primary relationship partners following sexual betrayals. Specifically, we found that sexual infidelity perpetrators (a) blamed their primary dyadic partners (i.e., victims) for infidelities significantly more than those victims blamed themselves for such infidelities, (b) blamed the surrounding circumstances for infidelities significantly more than their victims did, and (c) rated the emotional impact of infidelities on their victims as significantly less than victims' ratings of such impact. Moreover, we found that participants with prior experience as both sexual infidelity perpetrators and victims displayed "sexual hypocrisy" by judging others more harshly than themselves for sexually unfaithful behavior. Our findings demonstrate that personality variables associated with sexual infidelity (narcissism, sexual narcissism, avoidant attachment, and primary psychopathy) are also relevant to self-serving attributions in the sexual infidelity context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does one respond to the sexual infidelity of one's partner or spouse? It probably depends on whom one asks, in what country, and in which culture. Concepts such as faithfulness, commitment, loyalty, and trust are viewed and weighed differently in different societies. While monogamy is valued by most members in most societies, the levels of tolerance for adultery may vary across cultures. In some cultures, the adulterous behavior is punished harshly; in others, looking the other way may be more the norm than the exception. The present study attempts to measure the attitudes and reactions of the Hispanic-American college students towards adultery. The participants were shown a film that contained adulterous behavior and asked to express their opinions on a selfadministered paper-and-pencil test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do men and women interpret the meaning of sexual infidelities? Is it different from the way they interpret emotional infidelities? People make different attributions regarding infidelity depending on their self-worth. The influence of this intrapsychic factor on reactions to infidelity deserves greater study. Some people will construe infidelity as evidence of their partners' lack of trustworthiness. Others might attribute infidelity to situational factors beyond anyone's control, and avoid blaming their partners altogether. However, if one's sense of self-worth is highly contingent on external sources their attributions may change. In these cases, one may interpret infidelity to mean that others find him or her undesirable and unlovable. In the present study, we sought to investigate how self-worth might influence reactions to sexual versus emotional infidelity using the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS) and the Buss Jealousy Instrument. A chi square analysis was used to determine whether reactions to infidelity depended on sex and Hotelling's T-square test was used to determine whether CSWS domains were dependent on sex. Binomial logistic regressions were conducted to assess between-sex and within-sex differences in reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity. There was no significant difference between men's and women's reactions to sexual versus emotional infidelity. Greater distress associated with sexual infidelity was found in men whose self-worth was contingent on competition, but this difference was not found in women. Clinicians may benefit from an awareness of how intrapsychic factors influence clients' reactions to infidelity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]