The use of social media and satisfaction of basic psychological needs as a predictors of the tendency towards infidelity in romantic relationships

The present study investigated the effects of level of social media usage and basic psychological needs on individuals' infidelity tendencies were investigated. In addition, the relationship of infidelity tendency, level of social media usage and basic psychological needs satisfaction with variables such as gender, age, education level, the number of children, financial situation. The questionnaires were given to 200 participants (103 male and 97 female) who were living in İstanbul, İzmir and Gaziantep and were at the age range of 25-45. The data was collected through ''The Infidelity Tendency Scale'', ''Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction Scale'', ''Social Media Addiction Scale'' and ''Socio-demographic questionnaire''. The Social Media Addiction Scale used in the study was used to determine the level of social media use of the participants. Data analysis was performed via SPSS version 23. The analysis inluded correlation, One-way ANOVA and T-test. As a result of the study, there was a significant positive correlation between infidelity tendency and level of social media usage (r=0.619, p<0.001). On the other hand, there was no significant relationship between infidelity tendency and basic psychological needs (p > 0.05). When the sub-categories of basic psychological needs were examined, however, there was a significant negative correlation between infidelity tendency and "Sufficiency" sub-category (r=0.-960), p<0.001).