Written by / First Psychology Writers
Editor / Tommy
With the emphasis on mental health and the advancement of medical technology, society generally recognizes that infidelity is not an abnormality of individual people, but an instinctive reaction of many people, and true loyalty is actually a choice.
Probably the first thing that comes to mind for most people is a profession where they spend their day-to-day work with clients of the opposite sex, such as a hairstylist or a personal fitness trainer.
Men make up the majority of practitioners in these fields, and they interact frequently with a large number of female clients, so it is generally accepted that practitioners in these professions are more likely to engage in cheating behavior.
Sometimes facts can be surprising and challenge common beliefs.
1. Research on career choice and gender infidelity rates
Indeed, no matter what the industry, there will be its outstanding representatives and negative examples.
Cheating is present in every field, but the point is that there are some professions that have a truly alarming rate of infidelity in comparison.
In 2020, Chinese sociologists analyzed the cheating rates of men and women in different occupations, and after integrating the data, they came up with some unexpected results:
1. Among male-dominated occupations, IT and Internet-related industries have the highest cheating rate of 10.06%, while among women, full-time housewives lead with 18% of cheating rates.
2. Among the top five occupations with high cheating rates for men, the other four are, in descending order of cheating rates: finance, education, healthcare, and law.
3. Among the top five occupations with a high rate of cheating for women, the remaining four are: education, medical industry, secretarial work and designer.
Contrary to the public's stereotype, the IT industry for men and full-time housewives for women are the two groups with the highest cheating rates.
It's not that the more opportunities you have with more of the opposite sex, the more likely you are to cheat. Whether they are men working in the IT industry or full-time housewives, what they have in common is that they rarely have the opportunity to come into contact with the opposite sex.
An in-depth analysis of those occupations with a higher risk of cheating shows that they are all related to a decrease in the chance of contact with the opposite sex to some extent, and the more occupations with less contact with the opposite sex, the higher the rate of infidelity.
At first glance, these men's high-risk occupations may seem unbelievable, but when you think about it, it's quite logical.
2. Is the high cheating rate due to less contact with the opposite sex?
In general, it is natural to assume that professions with frequent contact with the opposite sex should have a higher rate of cheating, because frequent communication makes it easier for two people to have an emotional spark, and the cost of cheating is relatively low.
Therefore, driven by this low-cost, high-reward mentality, those who have the opportunity to contact more people of the opposite sex should have a higher rate of cheating.
However, the aggregation of data can always subvert people's traditional beliefs, and those occupations with high cheating rates often have difficulty in frequent contact with the opposite sex.
1. Choices and challenges of self-restraint under force majeure
People in the IT industry and in full-time positions are often faced with an environment where it is difficult to meet the opposite sex, however, human emotional and physical needs are real, and these needs do not disappear automatically because of self-restraint.
Therefore, when these needs are desperately sought to be met and there is no one around to support them, it is easy for individuals to go down a path of no return.
First, in fact, healthy interactions between people of the opposite sex are instinctively satisfying each other's needs to a certain extent, and do not have to be satisfied through cheating. Normal interaction and communication is also a path of satisfaction in itself, and a specific professional environment has led some people to choose the deviant path of cheating.
From this point of view, all of a sudden, everything seems to become clear. People tend to be more curious and eager to explore things that are more scarce and uncommon.
This is the so-called forbidden fruit effect at work.
The forbidden fruit effect refers to the fact that when people are faced with things that are taboo, restricted, and forbidden, they will have a strong sense of desire and excitement, which in turn leads to uncontrolled behavior or thoughts. The forbidden fruit effect can also be understood as "the more you forbid, the more you want"
On a moral level, infidelity is seen as irrational and shameful behavior that is explicitly forbidden by society.
Long-neglected emotional needs make it difficult for these two groups of people to express their needs and meet them in a reasonable way, so they are more prone to higher cheating rates.
Further, in high-risk cheating occupations, there is less contact with the opposite sex, and the ability to resist temptation is correspondingly reduced.
We have developed "immunity" to common things, so it is not difficult to understand why industries with less contact with the opposite sex are more likely to be swayed by the attention and temptation of other members of the opposite sex, so that they can easily abandon their original commitments, leading to the breakdown of families.
As psychologist Sigmund Freud pointed out, repressed needs are more likely to manifest themselves in extreme and intense forms. However, no matter what the reason for infidelity is, it is an act that harms others and oneself.
2. Reasonable ways to meet emotional needs
In Chinese marriages, there are a large number of nominal husband and wife relationships, who lack love and sexual connection, and are only nominal living partners, who have long lost their initial love and are still struggling to maintain the relationship.
On the one hand, they are constrained by China's unique social concepts and moral norms, which makes it difficult for them to put down their heads and confess to the outside world that their choices for years have been wrong. In Chinese society, face is something engraved in people's bone marrow.
On the other hand, the financial interests involved in marriage and the upbringing of children cannot be ignored. Every parent wants their children to grow up in a complete family environment, and the impact of a broken family on a child is profound.
Therefore, out of consideration for the children, these nominal couples will not choose divorce easily.
After the relationship passes, the other party can no longer meet the emotional needs, so the opposite sex in the outside world has become a new target for them to seek emotional satisfaction.
But can maintaining a superficial marriage really bring you the happiness you or your children expect?
The End -
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Keywords in this article: cheating, psychology
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