We Project Onto Romantic Partners Our Own Desires To Cheat

Why do we stay with one partner over another, when there are so many attractive alternatives? 

 If we are in a committed dyadic relationship, the threat from moving to alternative partners, sexually or romantically, is one of the greatest. Infidelity is a main predictor of relationship break-up, and relationship stability

depends, among other things, on guarding against infidelity. Jealousy and suspicion, on the other hand, can drive a wedge into intimacy, and set up destructive cycles which ironically can end up resulting in infidelity, when jealously drives a loved one into the arms of another. However, when our relationships aren't going well, and suspicion may be well-founded, paying attention to warning signs may either allow issues to be addressed before they become terminal, or may allow for a less painful separation than would be the case with breaking-up after infidelity.

But how do we know when our suspicions are well-founded, or are merely the result of our own disavowed desires for others being projected on to our partners (or both)? This is a tricky question, and for the individual one best addressed through introspection, soul-searching, self-exploration and challenging conversations. However, new research on how projection can affect perception of romantic partner's attraction to others can help inform our efforts to understand ourselves and those close to us.

In order to examine to what extent projection may play a role in whether or not people believe their romantic partners are attracted to others, researchers Neal and Lemay (2017) designed a study to sort out how much projection of one's own forbidden inner desires may play out in what we see in others. They propose that if people are attracted to alternative partners, they will be more likely to see their partners as being likewise attracted to others, and will therefore be more likely to respond with negative emotions and behaviors—as if their partner had actually cheated on them.

Why might we project our desires onto our romantic partners?

Neal and Lemay review the literature behind their work on projection in romantic relationships. According to interdependence theory, the more we depend on one another, the more mutual and overt our dependence is, and the more interconnected we become, the more our self-concepts will come to overlap. If this is true, it would be more likely to support the presumption that whatever we think and feel, so must our partners also think and feel. It's a basic, first-order approximation of others' motives—other people must be motivated the same way I am, so I'll make my first guess about what you are doing based on my own sense of what I am doing. Of course, these assumptions are often wrong—I may not know my own motivations very accurately (most of us don't, but we often think we do) and the other person may have different motivations than my own, regardless.

The study authors go on to note that people who are interested in "engaging in extradyadic relationships" may be more likely to believe their partners are also interested, citing prior work on projection. They note that prior research shows that people may project their own internal states and behaviors onto other people when it comes to other key relationship factors: attachment style, dishonesty, responsiveness, closeness, caring, feelings of relationship equality, and enjoyment of sex. We tend to see ourselves in others, and we tend to see what we need or want to see. Projection, they say, may be motivated on many levels—seeing a partner as wanting to cheat may help alleviate our own feelings of guilt and rationalize our own desires.

On the other hand, if we are committed, we may ignore the possibility that our partner is not, downplaying threats to the relationship. Psychologists call these factors, collectively, "projection bias", a tendency to skew perception of reality to come into line with our own inner experience. Projection bias may therefore exert a distorting effect on interpersonal reality, for example enhancing justified suspicion or fueling jealousy when it is not justified. Projection bias works with accurate perceptions of reality, potentially misleading us as emotional reasoning prevails over emotionally-informed reasoning. In particular, they point out that if we project our own attraction to others onto our partners, and then respond with anger and related negative behaviors (e.g. jealousy, suspicion, dismissiveness, withdrawal, etc.).

by Grant H. Brenner M.D.