A infidelidade virtual no relacionamento amoroso: correlatos afetivos e sociais

This thesis aimed at investigating the social and affective correlates of romantic relationships. It has emphasis on virtual infidelity. This study was theoretically and methodologically carried out by using the theoretical contributions of tetrangular model of love and human values. It also counted on the studies about romantic jealousy and the addiction to the Internet. In order to achieve the aim of this thesis it was necessary to develop three studies: the first characterized as preliminary and instrumental was aimed at adapting/validating two instruments; the virtual infidelity scale and the Internet addiction scale for the Brazilian context. The participants were 246 college students from public and private educational institutions of João Pessoa, PB; with age range of 17-55 years old (mean = 24.3, SD = 7.15), most of them were female (62.1%). The results obtained by the Exploratory Factor Analysis of the virtual infidelity scale revealed two dimensional structures: sexual relationship (α = 0.96) and friendship relationship (α = 0.81). The results of the measurement addiction to the Internet indicated a one-dimensional structure (α = 0.89). The Study 2 was aimed at confirming the factor structure of the scales applied in the first study and verify the strength of correlations with the constructs love, jealousy and human values. A number of 210 university students were the participants who answered the same scales from Study 1, added to the measures: tetrangular love, romantic jealousy and the questionnaire of the basic values. These participants ages ranged from 17 to 50 years (M = 23.6, SD = 6.41) mostly were female (73.8%). The results obtained by the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of virtual infidelity and addiction to the Internet for the Brazilian context suggested that the model with four and three dimensions, respectively which was originally proposed by the authors, was the one that best showed adequated validity and accuracy (GFI = 0.89, CFI = 0.97 and GFI = 0.83, CFI = 0.96). Concerning the predictive strength of the measures: addiction to Internet, jealousy, love and human values it was observed that the first variable contributed significantly to the explanation of the attitudes towards virtual infidelity (R = 0.25, p 0.05), and, lastly, the human values had a prominent contribution (R = 0.49, p 0,05); e, por fim, os valores humanos tiveram uma contribuição de destaque (R = 0,49, p < 0,001). O estudo 3 teve como objetivo elaborar um modelo teórico explicativo a partir dos construtos valores humano, ciúme e adição à Internet para explicar as atitudes frente à infidelidade virtual. Participaram 204 usuários da Internet, com idade variando entre 17 a 66 anos (m = 29,3; dp = 10,34), sendo a maioria do sexo feminino (59,8%). Os resultados advindos das análises estatísticas mostraram que os três construtos foram determinantes para explicar a atitude de infidelidade virtual. Na medida dos valores humanos (r = -0,15; p < 0,05) sobressaíram as subfunções experimentação, suprapessoal, existência, normativa e realização, o ciúme romântico (r = -0,33; p < 0,001) com as dimensões não-ameaça e exclusão e adição à Internet (r = 0,13; p < 0,05) com as dimensões retirada e problemas sociais, gestão do tempo e desempenho e realidade substituída foram subjacentes às atitudes frente a infidelidade virtual. Em síntese, pode-se inferir que os resultados contribuíram de maneira satisfatória com o modelo explicativo do comportamento acerca da infidelidade virtual. Espera-se também que estes resultados possam ser aplicados em pesquisas futuras