1. Introduction

Infidelity is a phenomenon that has been seen over the years in different generations and countries. The report by ^{Wang (2018,} January 10) shows that between 2000 and 2009, the highest rate of infidelity was transferred to men aged 60 to 69 years (29%) and women aged 50 to 59 years (17%); however, the gap of gender from the age of 80 increased from 5% to 12% in two decades. Regarding Latin-American countries , Redacción ^{El Tiempo (2010}, October 2) published a survey made in 11 countries of the region, in which it is mentioned that 6 out of 10 Latin Americans (63%) admit been unfaithful at some time, with a males bieng prodiminant.

Regarding the relevance of culture, authors such as ^{Rada (2012)}, ^{Fincham and May (2016)} and ^{Rosenberg (2018)} point out the influence that different messages can have, not only on topics such as sexuality, love, and adultery, but also high divers terminology referring to the term of infidelity and the cultural conceptions of it. Thus, there are differences in the moral perception of unfaithful behavior in 39 countries surveyed in six regions (^{Wike, 2014}) and there are societies, in which unfaithful behavior is censored depending on whether it was committed by the man or the woman (^{Buss, 2016}).

Now, it is pertinent to mention the impact that infidelity has on physical and emotional health. In this regard, there are studies that point to infidelity as one of the main causes of divorce in couples (^{Allen & Atkins, 2012}; ^{Amato & Previti, 2003}; ^{Buss & Shackelford, 1997}; ^{Buss, 2016}; ^{Eslami et al., 2018}; ^{Scott et al., 2013}). Besides, when comparing married couples and divorced couples, it is found in the latter higher levels of psychological distress, substance abuse, depression, and lower levels in general health (^{Hughes & Waite, 2009}). At the same time, it has been found that casual sex that does not occur within the scope of a marriage, in which there is a promise for a lifetime that gives fertility and fulfillment to the act, can generate emotional and psychological effects on people (^{McIlhaney Jr & Bush, 2018}). Also, infidelity generates loss of self-esteem, identity crisis (^{Thompson & O’Sullivan, 2016}), depression/anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (^{Cano & O’Leary, 2000}; ^{Rosenberg, 2018}; ^{Stosny, 2013}), anger, irritability, and chronic resentment that can generate short and long-term health effects (^{Hughes & Waite, 2009}; ^{Stosny, 2013}).

In addition, infidelity has been found as a risk factor for violence against women, up to the point of homicide (^{Buss, 2016}; ^{González et al., 2009}; ^{Shackelford et al., 2003}). Furthermore, those who have sex with a second partner have low rates of condom use (^{Conley et al., 2012}), which carries a direct risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection; thus, pointing to a public health problem (^{Hall et al., 2008}).

In relation to the factors that influence unfaithful behavior, different studies give relevance to the quality of the couple’s relationship; its satisfaction being a relevant factor for unfaithful behavior (^{Medina et al., 2013}; ^{Negash et al., 2014}; ^{Whisman et al., 2007}). Likewise, ^{Whisman et al. (2007)} mentioned low self-esteem and suspicion of an affair as predictive variables of infidelity, mentioning as well that a variable that predicted infidelity above the effects of marital dissatisfaction and demographic variables was religiosity, which was negatively associated with infidelity and it seems to act as a protective factor that weakens the association between marital dissatisfaction and infidelity. In addition, higher levels of education, being of the same religion, greater commitment, and marital cohabitation compared to non-marital cohabitation are variables that decrease the possibility of committing infidelity at the couple level (^{Fincham & May, 2016}).

At the same time, regarding individual characteristics, different authors mention the influence of personality traits such as narcissism, lack of empathy, grandiosity, impulsiveness, high search for novelties or strong emotions, and having an avoidant attachment style (^{Buss & Shackelford, 1997}; ^{González et al., 2009}; ^{Mark et al., 2011}; ^{Rosenberg, 2018}; ^{Whisman et al., 2007}). Similarly, family history of infidelity, having been unfaithful in previous relationships, greater number of sexual partners, alcohol problems, drug use, insecure attachment, high psychological anguish, and a permissive attitude towards sexuality are variables identified as risk factors that facilitate infidelity (^{Fincham & May, 2016}).

Regarding the sex variable, a greater number of men reported having sexual infidelity with respect to women (81.9 vs 50%; ^{Rada, 2012}), being consistent with ^{Buss (2016)}. Additionally, it was found that women tend to associate infidelity with the need for communication, affection and a “weak personality”, while men with “unsatisfied sexual needs” (^{Rada, 2012}, p. 221). Furthermore, ^{Shackelford et al. (2002)} point out that men find it more difficult to forgive sexual infidelity than a emotional one and are more likely to end a current relationship after the sexual infidelity of a partner than a emotional infidelity. In turn, the literature suggests that women would be more distressed than men if their partners were unfaithful with a very attractive rival (^{Buss et al., 2000}; ^{Buunk et al., 2007}). This is due to the fact that in the ancestral history of humanity, men have valued the physical attractiveness of a potential partner more than women, because physical attractiveness represents an important indication of a woman’s fertility (^{Kato, 2019}).

On the whole, unfaithful behavior is relevant for the clinical field: on the one hand, considering the psychological and physical consequences generated by infidelity; on the other hand, the existing need to provide people with tools to facilitate the resignification, adaptation and coping with infidelity (^{Rosenberg, 2018}; ^{Stosny, 2013}). Therefore, it is important to better understand the phenomenon of unfaithful behavior in order to prevent and promote aspects that favor the satisfaction, quality, and stability of couple relationships in the therapeutic field, as well as the management of those risk factors of the previously mentioned unfaithful conduct, considering as well that couple difficulties are a reason for consultation between 25% and 35% of the times (^{Quesada, 2004}), and together with divorce, they turn out to be the reason for consultation a 25.6% in women and a 14.7% in men (^{Barrera et al., 2017}). In this way, interventions to support couples can also prevent the impact that children may have due to parental conflict (^{Reynolds & Houlston, 2014}).

Having said that, for the purposes of this study, infidelity will be understood as a series of behaviors of a romantic and/or sexual nature that occur outside of a relationship, both in married members, single, living together or not, where the expectation of sexual and/or emotional exclusivity and the commitment established in the relationship are unfulfilled (^{Afifi et al., 2001}; ^{Romero-Palencia et al., 2007}; ^{Torres et al., 2016}).

Regarding the construct of infidelity, different instruments have been designed over the years for its measurement, such as the ^{Glass and Wright (1992)} Justifications for Extramarital Involvement Questionnaire (JEIQ); the instrument of ^{Buss and Shackelford (1997)} to measure susceptibility to six types of infidelity; the instrument of ^{Banfield and McCabe (2001)} about sexual and emotional infidelity; the Infidelity Questionnaire (^{Yeniceri & Kökdemir, 2006}), among others. However, although these instruments have addressed some aspects of infidelity, the Multidimensional Inventory of Infidelity (IMIN), created by ^{Romero-Palencia et al. (2007)}, allows to measure infidelity in a more comprehensive way, encompassing factors such as unfaithful behavior, the reasons why the person would be unfaithful, their concepts of infidelity, and the perceived consequences of it, aspects widely named by the previously mentioned literature.

Furthermore, the IMIN has been used by different authors in Spanish-speaking samples: the studyby ^{CalderónPérez et al. (2018)} about the relationship between jealousy and infidelity in Mexican participants; also in Mexico, the research carried out by ^{Romero-Palencia et al. (2014)} about the prediction of sexual desire in heterosexual women; the study carried out by ^{Reyes Osejo (2018)} on members of the “National Police Command” in the city of Quito; the research carried out in Colombia (^{Torres et al., 2016}) to study the relationship between infidelity and emotional intelligence with university students in Bogotá; finally, the research by ^{Britos et al. (2019)}, in which the IMIN obtained a reliability of .96 from the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, and was used to identify the characteristics of unfaithful behavior in people residing in Paraguay who had had a relationship.

Regarding its validity and reliability, a psychometric analysis of the IMIN was carried out in a sample of university students from the city of Cartagena in Colombia (^{Geney et al., 2018}). After carrying out the Exploratory Factor Analysis, this study reported the following adjustments in the four subscales: in the Tendency to infidelity subscale, 25 items were eliminated for a final total of 23 items (Cronbach’s Alpha of .95); in the Motives Subscale, 20 items were eliminated for a total of 50 final items (Cronbach’s Alpha of .97); in the subscale of Beliefs of infidelity, 10 items were eliminated for a total of 34 final items (Cronbach’s Alpha of .95); finally, in the subscale of Consequences of infidelity, 2 items were eliminated for a total of 11 final items (Cronbach’s Alpha of .91). It should be clarified that the original IMIN factors were preserved in the 4 subscales, leaving as a suggestion the modification of the name of the Insecurity factor by one called Communication Problems in the Beliefs to Infidelity subscale.

In this way, ^{Geney et al. (2018)} report that the scale yields appropriate validity and reliability indicators for higher education students in the city mentioned. However, no other studies of its psychometric properties are found in the non-university population in Colombia, which refers to the need for this study, which aims to determine the validity and reliability of the IMIN for Colombian samples. The specific objectives were to determine the validity of the IMIN for Colombian samples, and to identify the reliability patterns of the IMIN for those samples. As a working hypothesis, it is proposed that from the psychometric analysis carried out of the IMIN, adequate validity and reliability indices will be obtained to be used in the Colombian population.

2. Method

3. Results

In order to determine the viability of the sample size and the correlation matrix for the factorial analysis, the KMO values are shown obtaining indicators higher than .8 (.94), and from Bartlett’s sphericity test a significance lower than .05 (.00) was found, which allows affirming the viability of the factorial analysis. In the same way, it was carried out an extraction analysis of all the reagents for each subscale, finding loads higher than .3, which suggests the conservation of all the items. To facilitate the presentation of the information of the factorial and reliability analyses, and to develop the findings in a similar way to the original study, the analyses for each subscale are shown separately.

4. Discussion

Taking into account that infidelity is, on the one hand, a problem that impacts people’s lives on a psychological and physical level, generating loss of self-esteem, identity crisis, depression/anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (^{Cano & O’Leary, 2000}; ^{Rosenberg, 2018}; ^{Stosny, 2013}; ^{Thompson & O’Sullivan, 2016}), and involvement in the immune system (^{Hughes & Waite, 2009}; ^{Stosny, 2013}); and, on the other hand, that it is one of the main causes of divorce (^{Allen & Atkins, 2012}; ^{Amato & Previti, 2003}; ^{Buss & Shackelford, 1997}; ^{Buss, 2016}; ^{Eslami et al., 2018}; ^{Scott et al., 2013}), which significantly affects not only the couple’s relationship, but also its physical and psychological health (^{Hughes & Waite, 2009}). Infidelity turns out to be a construct of clinical interest that needs to be measured considering, in addition that couple difficulties and divorce are a relevant reason for consultation at the therapeutic level (^{Barrera et al., 2017}; ^{Quesada, 2004}). Therefore, the main objective of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the IMIN for the Colombian population, taking into account that there are few studies concerning its suitability and psychometric properties.

In the Tendency to infidelity scale, 3 factors were found that explained 66.744% of the total accumulated variance, grouping the items into the factors of desire to be unfaithful, tendency to emotional infidelity and tendency to sexual infidelity. On the scale of Motives for infidelity, seven factors were found, explaining 65.019% of the total variance, which correspond to Dissatisfaction with the primary relationship, sexuality, emotional and social instability, ideology and norms, impulsivity, apathy, and aggression, although the elimination of items 17=“I hate my partner” is necessary; 21=“Because that’s how they educated me” and 24=“Lack of passion in my relationship as a couple.” In the subscale of Beliefs to infidelity, five factors were obtained, explaining 58.331% of the accumulated variance: one factor combining the original items of the factors Transgression to relationship and Dissatisfaction, and the other four factors being feelings of loss, passion, insecurity, and love for another, recommending the elimination of items 1=“Lack of commitment” and 26=“Insecurity”.

Finally, in the subscale of Consequences of infidelity, two clearly constituted factors were found, called negative consequences and positive consequences, which explain 57.585% of the accumulated variance. Despite these adjustments, the original test structures are preserved, and no categoriesor dimensions are removed, which continues to ensure the validity of the test content.

Similarly, the findings show models with adequate levels of goodness of fit, which allows confirming the conceptual proposal of the scale, and rectifying the validity of the subscales and the instrument in general. Regarding reliability, a general alpha of .93, high alphas was found for each subscale (except for the positive consequences subscale, with an alpha of .79), as well as adequate correlations between the items of each subscale. Between the items with the total test, alphas affected if items are hypothetically eliminated, and high correlations between parts, in addition to a high coefficient of two halves. All of the above allows us to indicate that there is sufficient evidence of the validity and reliability of the scale to be applied in Colombian samples.

Regarding the internal consistency indexes, suitable Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were obtained for all the subscales, as found in the original study, and this analysis was even superior for the factor of “Positive consequences of infidelity”, despite being a coefficient that ranges between .7 and .8. Considering the aforementioned, there is a concordance of the distribution of the items obtained in the present study with the initial theoretical proposal of ^{Romero-Palencia et al. (2007)}. Similarly, the distribution and the metric results of the IMIN also agree with the data reported in Cartagena (^{Geney et al., 2018}), affirming the validity, reliability, and internal consistency of the instrument. This could suggest the influence that the culture and geographical location of people can have, as they belong to Latin American countries (^{Fincham & May, 2016}; ^{Rada, 2012}; ^{Rosenberg, 2018}; ^{Wike, 2014}).

However, although belonging to a Latin American culture may favor the validity and reliability of the IMIN, the possibility of finding cultural differences between countries should not be overlooked. This is supported by the findings of the survey conducted in 11 Latin countries, in which differences were found with respect to the report and the number of times of unfaithfulness (Redacción El ^{Tiempo, 2010}, October 2). Considering the above, it is important to mention two differences found in the grouping of the items in two of the subscales with respect to the IMIN in the Mexican population. One of the differences found was in the Tendencies to infidelity subscale, because the distribution of the items in the factors Desire for emotional infidelity and Desire for sexual infidelity were grouped into the same factor, which was named Desire to be unfaithful.

Those grouping of items could result not only from the aforementioned cultural factor, but also from the relationship that Desire items have to emotional infidelity with the sexual dimension of the human being. In this regard, ^{McIlhaney Jr and Bush (2018)} describe that the process of two people who know each other is mediated by different behaviors and emotional expressions that are part of the sexual dimension of a person, such as passionate hugs, caresses, minor or mostly passionate kisses, among others.

Therefore, the desire to caress, kiss, passionately embrace and flirt with a person in addition to the partner (characteristics of the items of the factor Desire for emotional infidelity) turn out to be desires that, although located in the dimension and emotional desire of people, can easily arouse sexual desire with them. This considering that the human being is a unit where each dimension (e.g. emotional and sexual) can affect each other (^{McIlhaney Jr & Bush, 2018}).

Now, the second difference found in the grouping of the items was for the subscale Beliefs to infidelity. In this regard, the corresponding items of the relationship Transgression and Dissatisfaction subscales were grouped into a single factor (named “relationship dissatisfaction”). This grouping could be due to the fact that the items of Transgression of the relationship (lack of respect, disinterest, dishonesty, lack of communication) in the Colombian population can be perceived as dissatisfaction of the relationship, considering, on the one hand, the cultural influence on the perception and interpretation of relationships (^{Fincham & May, 2016}; ^{Rosenberg, 2018}); and, on the other hand, the relationship that the items that make up the factor of the Relationship Transgression may have with the conception of dissatisfaction within a relationship, indicating a relationship between both factors. The foregoing is consistent with what was stated by ^{Reynolds and Houlston (2014)}, who mention that the concept of dissatisfaction within a coupleťs relationship is mediated mainly by negative communication, lacking in respect that leads to conflict. These characteristics are part of the items of the Relationship Transgression factor, for which reason they could be related to the conception of dissatisfaction and support the grouping of items in the same factor in the Colombian population.

5. Conclusions

The factorial structure allows to affirm that there is a valid instrument to measure infidelity in its four dimensions, as well as reliable, due to the high indexes of internal consistency with their respective coefficients, which are indicators that the items have a harmony at a theoretical level that responds to the same construct.

According to the theoretical review carried out, it can be affirmed that there is a current validation of this instrument for Colombia, which guarantees the psychometric properties. The validated instrument turns out to be a useful measurement tool to delve into the descriptive characteristics of the Colombian population with respect to the infidelity variable and, thus, be able to facilitate therapeutic and/or prevention and promotion processes that favor not only the mental and physical health of people, but also relationships and future for Colombian families.

6. Limitations and Future Research

The imbalance between women and men is recognized, as well as non-probabilistic sampling, since the selection of participants was made through a sampling by available subjects, and it is suggested for future research to use a random sampling that guarantees the representativeness of the sample.

Future lines of research should aim not only to evaluate the tendency to infidelity, its motives, beliefs, and perceived consequences in various Colombian samples, but also to deepen these findings in order to carry out processes to prevent infidelity, reduce problems in couple relationships, and promote quality relationships that lead to the construction of solid families that are the basis of a better society. Thus, it is suggested to carry out research that delves into the factors that influence the satisfaction of couple relationships and the quality of their sexual life, considering them as one of the main reasons for unfaithful behavior (^{Medina et al., 2013}; ^{Negash et al., 2014}; ^{Rada, 2012}; ^{Whisman et al., 2007}).

For example, studies such as the one by ^{Busby et al. (2010)} found in 2.035 couples that the married couples who had sex only until marriage compared to couples who had premarital sex had significant differences in the quality of sex, sexual relationship, communication, and greater relationship satisfaction. Such study is consistent with that mentioned by ^{Wilcox et al. (2011)}, regarding that getting sexually involved before marriage at any age can cloud the decision when choosing the right person for a lifetime, because on a biochemical level the bond and the high dopamine that sexuality brings with it can be blinding to honestly see defects and lack of compatibility.

Therefore, it is suggested to go beyond the identification of what people thinks or motivates them regarding infidelity, to inquire into little-studied factors such as the one mentioned above, and thus develop research that delves into all the variables that the IMIN measures to thus promoting a true education in love in human relationships.