The Association between Mate-Poaching Behaviors and Trust Toward Current Partner

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Nicholas Garrick

Abstract or Description

In the general topic of relationship infidelity, some research has focused on the concept of “mate-poaching,” or the behavior of trying to attract someone who is already in a relationship with someone else as one’s sexual partner. Individuals engaging in mate-poaching may themselves be in lower-quality relationships. One marker of relationship quality is trust. Moreover, individuals who are relatively more attracted to potential alternatives to current partners (e.g., more tempted to “cheat”) or who engage in more deception with their partners may project these feelings and behaviors onto the partner. That is, extradyadic attractions may be associated with beliefs that one’s partner is unfaithful, or being deceptive towards the partner may be associated with beliefs that the partner is dishonest. The goal of the current study is to explore a possible implication of these types of findings; specifically, to examine if a higher self-reported frequency of one’s own mate-poaching behavior is a correlate of lower levels of trust regarding one’s current romantic partner. This hypothesis was tested using a sample of 210 couples who were either married or seriously dating for a minimum of one year. Analyses were run for the subset of males and females in the sample who completed both self-report measures of mate-poaching and trust in a manner protecting the confidentiality of responding for each partner. The male partner's frequency of mate poaching was significantly related to lower levels of trust in the relationship/partner (r = -.26, p < .001). Although this was in the same direction for females and was a statistical “trend”, the relationship was not significant (r = -.14, p = .057). The results are consistent with the idea that men who engage in mate-poaching behaviors may project deceptive behaviors onto their partners, resulting in lower levels of trust.