Or, at least, the 34 women in the study showed "small–moderate" correlations with guessing right when they were asked. (And men can't tell, apparently.)

Can Women Really 'See' Cheating?
Can Women Really 'See' Cheating? © Mirco Vacca/Dreamstime.com

It seems like you can't throw a dart at a wall of research without hitting a "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" claim. Recently, we've seen some good studies along those lines (and some not so good studies). Now here's another one, out of Australia: women, researchers say, can tell if a person they've never seen before has a history of infidelity.

The researchers determined the sexual histories of 189 white adults. Then they showed photos of those adults to 34 men and 34 women, who had to decide which subjects had a background of cheating. The female participants, researchers said, could tell with "modest" (not high but not insignificant) accuracy which men had a history of cheating. The men had an insignificant correlation with guessing right about the women--in other words, they couldn't tell.

Women based their conclusions on the "masculinity" of the men's features, which the researchers write was indicative of their discretions--so watch out for the especially square-chinned ones, ladies. (Really, there is some data to back that idea up.) Men, by contrast, rated the more attractive women as more likely to cheat, which didn't correlate.

"We conclude that impressions of sexual faithfulness from faces have a kernel of truth," the researchers write, "at least for women, and that they may help people assess the quality of potential mates about whom they have minimal behavioural information." The phrase "kernel of truth" doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a study based on correlations (which, again, were relatively small on this). The sample size of men and women seems a little on the low side, too. It'll be interesting to see what other researchers make of these finds.

[Biology Letters via Reuters]

14 Comments

Or, the study indicates that women prefer men with a square jaw thus increasing their chances and choices to cheat. I heard of another study on NPR that stated that female dancers were the most apt to cheat on their mate mainly because of more exposure meant more flirtation and opportunity to be distracted into new relationship.

I think it is reasonable that men can guess if they are cheating them with another man. But if a woman decides to cheat on her hubby with another woman, I bet 100% he never guesses, unless, of course he actually catches them doing something in the act.

Or, maybe, just maybe, men are genetically predisposed to spread there seed with as many women as possible, so naturally, men are more likely to cheat, therefore, your odds of being correct when guessing how many men have cheated in a group of men?

bah, their*

That's one ability that doesn't seem to be doing them much good.
Also this study is stupid, and not scientific at all.
While women read crap like this their men are out cheating.

Better not tell Woman they have this power. Most woman already claim their so much smarter then us.

Another worth while endeavour. Luckily we've already solved those pesky little problems like clean energy, cancer, food production, clean water. Thank you humanity for never letting me down.

And what contribution did you make to humanity BigRosie? The People who did this research are not equiped to come up with the cure for cancer or solve the energy problem. Your complaint would be like me complaining that my Barber is wasting his time cutting hair since we still have the issue of male patern baldness to cure. Obviously my barber does not have the education to cure baldness so he cuts hair instead...

Women have long been know to be more intuitive than men....and better at hiding their affairs. Unbeknown to my husband I've been a member of Undercover Lovers, an adultery dating website, for 2 years. I joined after I discovered he'd been having an affair by reading his guilty face!

Cheating on one's love one is obviously wrong, disrespectful to the one you love and what the cheater does not realize is disrespectful to themselves as well.

Love the one your with or just be honest and leave. Stop wasting a person’s life and your own, else all you’re really doing is masturbating.

Dimidify makes a good point that is often overlooked.

If one agrees with the theory of evolution, which I do,…the modern human is a product of natural selection and has the same innate instincts that other members of the animal kingdom possess. Nature is quite simple and clear about the reproduction order…get as much of the best genetic material into the next generation as possible that will help the species prosper. The strongest males mate with the most females. Also, females of a species will turn down a male if they think that he is unfit.

As the article says “Women based their conclusions on the "masculinity" of the men's features”. I would not be surprised if their inner instincts also told them that the subject being rated would have a good chance of producing an acceptable or above average offspring. Other females would also recognize this...thus nature is just working as nature is supposed to work.

Males being males and behaving as nature programmed them to behave, the chances are high that they will perform the reproductive act with any willing female that is at or above the “acceptable” threshold.

Any moral thinking about this subject is a construct of society and culture and has nothing to do with the way that nature intended things to work.

@ ballz22,

I Agree with BigRosie.

Every time I read about the psychologists or the sociologists doing research that proves the obvious or running “programs” that are a swindle of the tax payers money or the money of people forced to participate in them it gets on my nerves.

There are uncountable research proposals in just the areas that BigRosie mentioned that are not getting support or programs being cancelled because of “lack of funds”.

As for the barber in your example, at least he is providing a service that

a) people pay for of their own free will
b) not taking money away from useful projects.

Can not understand it, but if women are that clever, why pick a cheater anyway. Locally 2 out 3 marriages end in divorce, I think more than half of them because of a cheating man. And most of these marriages are second or third marriages on top of it. In other words these women pick one cheater after another.

I'm sure they can. But then, most women love cheaters. I've picked up (also cheating and married) women in my 63 years and they're the best.



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