A comparative study of psychological profile of men and women with and without extramarital affairs

Extramarital affair is one of the most important issues in society and one of the main factors disrupting the foundation of family life. The aim of this study was to compare the psychological profile of men and women with extramarital affairs with normal people. The research method is causal-comparative and the population included all men and women who betrayed their spouses referred to counseling and psychology centers and clinics and all normal men and women in Gorgan city in ۲۰۱۳. Sampling of betrayers was performed through availability and normal individuals at random. The sample size was ۲۰۰ people (۵۰ male and ۵۰ female betrayers and ۵۰ men and ۵۰ normal women) and the participants filled the Minnesota Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. For data analysis, one-way analysis of variance and Tukey post hoc test were used. The results revealed that in the subscale of social deviation between men who cheated on their spouses with normal men and between women who cheated on their husbands and normal women, as well as hypomania between women who cheated on their wives and normal men and self-morbidity among women who cheated on them. Normal men and women were different. But other subscales of the Minnesota Personality Questionnaire (depression and hysteria) did not differ significantly between the groups. The presence of some disorders in people can be the cause or predisposing factor for some social disorders such as infidelity.

Keywords:

Psychological profile , men , women , Extramarital relationship , personality