بررسی رابطه بین ابعاد شخصیت، سلامت خانوادة اصلی و جهت‌گیری مذهبی با گرایش به خیانت زناشویی: نقش واسطه‌ای تمایزیافتگی خود و تمایل به فضای مجازی

Marital infidelity is a destructive phenomenon that threatens the stability of the marital relationship by undermining trust, weakening emotional bonds, and increasing the risk of separation and divorce. Empirical evidence indicates that a wide range of individual and contextual factors, such as personality traits, quality of the family of origin, self-differentiation, religious orientation, and patterns of using cyberspace, are associated with greater or lesser vulnerability to infidelity. In recent years, the rapid expansion of cyberspace and easy access to online communication have created new opportunities for forming emotional or sexual relationships outside marriage, often in hidden or low-supervision contexts. Although previous studies have separately examined some of these variables, there is still a need for an integrated model that simultaneously considers personality dimensions, health of the family of origin, religious orientation, self-differentiation, inclination toward cyberspace, and marital infidelity inclination. The present study was designed to address this gap by testing a structural model in which personality dimensions, family-of-origin health, and religious orientation predict marital infidelity inclination, while self-differentiation and inclination toward cyberspace are specified as mediating variables.

The research design was descriptive–correlational and based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population consisted of all married individuals living in Shiraz in 2024 whose marital duration was at least one year and no more than ten years. Using convenience sampling in various public and semi-public settings, 305 participants were recruited after obtaining informed consent. Inclusion criteria were being legally married, falling within the specified range of marital duration, and willingness to participate. Providing distorted information or leaving more than 5% of items unanswered in any questionnaire served as exclusion criteria.

Data were collected using a battery of self-report instruments assessing the main variables of the model. Personality traits were measured using the short form of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, which assesses neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Health of the family of origin was evaluated with the Family-of-Origin Scale, and religious orientation was assessed by Allport’s Religious Orientation Scale. Self-differentiation was measured using Skowron’s Differentiation of Self Inventory, and inclination toward cyberspace was assessed using Young’s Internet Addiction Test, which captures problematic or excessive involvement with cyberspace. Marital infidelity inclination was measured with Whatley’s Marital Infidelity Inclination Scale. All scales used in the present study have been translated and validated in Iranian samples in previous research, and internal consistency coefficients in this study were in the acceptable range.

Data analysis was performed in two stages. First, descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated using SPSS 26. In the second stage, the hypothesized structural model was tested through path analysis within the framework of structural equation modeling using Mplus 7.4. Age, length of marriage, and number of children were entered as control variables. The significance of indirect effects was examined through a bootstrap procedure with 5,000 resamples and 95% confidence intervals.

The findings supported the adequacy of the proposed model. At the level of direct effects, agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with marital infidelity inclination, indicating that more cooperative and responsible individuals reported lower willingness to engage in extradyadic relationships. Neuroticism was negatively related to self-differentiation and positively associated with inclination toward cyberspace, suggesting that individuals with higher emotional instability tend to have weaker differentiation and are more likely to turn to cyberspace as a way of coping with tension and negative affect. Openness to experience showed a positive relationship with inclination toward cyberspace, indicating that individuals who are more curious and novelty-seeking are more strongly attracted to online environments and new forms of interaction. Agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively related to inclination toward cyberspace, while conscientiousness was positively related to self-differentiation.

Health of the family of origin and religious orientation were positively associated with self-differentiation and negatively related to inclination toward cyberspace; however, they did not show significant direct effects on marital infidelity inclination. Self-differentiation itself was not a significant direct predictor of infidelity inclination, whereas inclination toward cyberspace showed a positive and significant effect on marital infidelity inclination.

Analysis of indirect effects using bootstrap confidence intervals indicated that neuroticism and openness to experience influenced marital infidelity inclination indirectly and positively through inclination toward cyberspace. In contrast, conscientiousness and religious orientation had negative and significant indirect effects on infidelity inclination via cyberspace, meaning that higher conscientiousness and stronger religious orientation reduced problematic use of cyberspace and thereby decreased inclination toward infidelity. Indirect paths involving health of the family of origin were not significant. The control variables (age, duration of marriage, and number of children) did not show significant effects on the main variables or the structural paths.

Overall, the results highlight the central mediating role of inclination toward cyberspace in the relationship between personality dimensions, religious orientation, and marital infidelity inclination. Personality traits such as neuroticism and openness to experience appear to function as risk factors mainly by increasing the likelihood of engaging with cyberspace in ways that facilitate secret or emotionally intense relationships outside marriage. On the other hand, agreeableness and conscientiousness act as protective factors that directly reduce infidelity inclination and also indirectly lower risk by limiting problematic involvement in cyberspace. Religious orientation also emerged as a protective resource that, by discouraging risky online interactions and reinforcing moral commitment, indirectly decreases marital infidelity inclination. The non-significant role of self-differentiation and family-of-origin health in predicting infidelity inclination suggests that, in the context of powerful situational influences such as cyberspace use, distal family factors and intrapsychic differentiation may exert their impact mainly in the background.

These findings underscore the necessity of paying attention to cyberspace use patterns in prevention and intervention programs targeting marital fidelity. It is recommended that premarital and marital counseling programs include components focused on digital literacy, setting clear boundaries for online interactions, and strengthening emotion regulation skills in virtual environments. Future research could adopt longitudinal and qualitative designs to clarify causal mechanisms and to explore how cultural context and gender roles shape the interplay among personality traits, religious orientation, cyberspace use, and marital infidelity.