Men Are Hard-Wired to Suspect Infidelity

Evolution appears to have hard-wired men to suspect their lovers of cheating. This tendency, described in a study published Saturday in Evolutionary Psychology, may be one of many so-called cognitive biases — “psychological mechanisms that were selected not because they perceived the world accurately, but because they perceive the world inaccurately,” in the words of […]

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Evolution appears to have hard-wired men to suspect their lovers of cheating.

This tendency, described in a study published Saturday in Evolutionary Psychology, may be one of many so-called cognitive biases — "psychological mechanisms that were selected not because they perceived the world accurately, but because they perceive the world inaccurately," in the words of study co-authors Aaron Goetz and Kayla Causey.

Cognitive biases are a useful mechanism for dealing with uncertain but potentially important information. For example, people are more likely to perceive male figures walking in place as approaching rather than leaving. They also tend to overestimate vertical distances, and to assume that large animals are sleeping rather than dead. The possible evolutionary advantages of such instincts are obvious. It's better to flee sooner rather than later from a mugger, to realize that a fall is dangerous before you've jumped, and to let sleeping dogs lie.

According to Goetz and Causey, whose poll of 60 men and 89 women found the former prone to suspicions of infidelity, assuming the worst could be especially useful to men. Infidelity poses certain risks — such as contracting sexually transmitted diseases — to both sexes, but the burdens of cuckoldry are greatest to men. Though an unfaithful woman still gives birth to her own child, her unwitting partner devotes time and energy to raising a rival's offspring.

"The sum of these costs provided selection pressure for the evolution of an arsenal of anti-cuckoldry tactics in men," write Goetz and Causey, who argue that heightened suspicion is one of these tactics.

There could be other explanations to the researchers' results. More men than women said they planned on eventually being unfaithful, so perhaps their suspicion was a projection of their own duplicity. Conversely, women may be too quick to assume fidelity. But Goetz and Causey's explanation are plausible.

However, should men use the findings to justify especially paranoid behavior, the authors have a response. "This overperception is likely to be naturally constrained," they write. "An unchecked and unyielding suspicion of partner infidelity would not have been adaptive."

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Citation: "Sex differences in perceptions of infidelity: Men often assume the worst." By Goetz, A.T., and Causey, K. Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 2, May 16, 2009.

Image: Flickr/Bobster855

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