Engendering Infidelity: Essentialist and Social Constructionist Readings of a Story Completion Task

Abstract

This study has two main aims: (a) to explore young men's and women's representations of `unfaithful' heterosexual relationships; and (b) in so doing to explore the theoretical and methodological implications of story completion as a research tool. One hundred and sixteen student subjects (seventy-two females and forty-four males) were given a story completion exercise, featuring a presumably unfaithful heterosexual partner-approximately half with a same-sex and half with an other-sex protagonist. Content analysis indicated that male subjects tended to sexualize and female subjects to romanticize the cue relationship. Males described the relationship as casual and sexually-focused, and minimized the emotional impact of infidelity, especially on the same-sex protagonist, who was most often described as reacting with indifference. Female subjects described the cue relationship as mutually loving and trusting and emphasized the emotionally devastating impact of infidelity for both same- and other-sex protagonists. Physically violent actions were more common in stories written by men. The findings are discussed in relation to feminist research on sex differences and sexuality and the implications of using story completion within essentialist and social constructionist perspectives are explored.