The five factor model and infidelity: Beyond the broad domains

Abstract

Several studies have explored the association between personality and infidelity, but our understanding of this relationship is arguably underdeveloped. The fact that most research only examined domain-level effects may have contributed to the situation, as facet-level and item- level information have not sufficiently been taken into consideration. This paper argues that it is an unwarranted assumption that domain-level associations reveal all there is to know about the relationship between personality and infidelity, and proceeds to examine this claim. The present study investigates the association between personality and infidelity but goes beyond the Big Five domains to examine facet and item-level associations in a sample of 685 participants. Bayesian logistic modeling with comprehensive indicators of uncertainty are provided for all models predicting infidelity. Results suggest that two facets in particular are associated with infidelity and that facet and item models contains additional predictive information compared to the broad domains. Findings further suggest that facets and items provide more nuanced information than can be gleaned from domain-level effects, which in turn, could advance our understanding of personality and its association with infidelity.