Fair but Irresponsible: How Moral Senses Affect Young Males’ Attitudes Toward Extramarital Affairs

Abstract

Extramarital affairs can be detrimental to family stability and individual happiness. Existing literature on the issue suggests that gender and moral qualities can be major influencing factors. Particularly, it is suggested that males are more likely to have affairs compared to females. In this study, we explore deeper possible gender differences together with the sense of responsibility and fairness in young people’s attitudes toward extramarital affairs from the perspective of information processing. Following the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we conducted Bayesian analyses on 493 university students from Germany, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Our analysis results show that males are more likely than females to think that extramarital affairs can be justified, but this gender difference is small in magnitude. In linear relationships, importance perceptions of fairness and responsibility do not have any clear effect on attitudes toward affairs. However, when considering the interactions between gender and these moral factors, we found that among males, those who put more importance on responsibility are less likely to think that extramarital affairs are justifiable, but those who put more importance on fairness are more likely to think that extramarital affairs are justifiable. These patterns may be due to how men interpret moral values in their subjective cost-benefit judgments toward marital relationships involving social expectations and personal preferences.