How people react to their Partners' infidelity: An explorative study

Infidelity is relatively common, with culprits not always been able to keep it secret from their partners. Accordingly, the current research aimed to study people's reactions to their partners' infidelity. More specifically, using qualitative research methods on a sample of 226 Greek-speaking participants, Study 1 identified 94 possible reactions to infidelity. Study 2 employed quantitative research methods on a sample of 757 Greek-speaking participants, and classified these reactions into 17 broad factors. Among the most probable reactions, were experiencing negative emotions, terminating the relationship, keeping physical distance from the unfaithful partner, and getting more information about the incident. Significant gender and age effects were found for several of the extracted factors. Using second-order principal components analysis, the extracted factors were classified into four broader domains. The current research contributes to understanding an important aspect of human mating behavior, and its findings could be used to develop better ways to deal with infidelity.