How to Identify an Unfaithful Man, according to a Study

Have you ever used spy apps to catch a cheater? You might not need them to detect whether your husband or girlfriend has a tendency to commit adultery. A recent study found that there are certain physical features on the face of unfaithful men that make it easy for women, and other men, to identify if they are prone to cheat on their partner.

The research, conducted by the University of Western Australia, revealed that those men with a typically more masculine face, with features such as a broad jaw, thick eyebrows and thin lips, were more likely to be unfaithful. The study was published by the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science and explained that for most men and women it was easy to identify with some precision men likely to be unfaithful.

“The judgments of the propensity to sexual infidelity made from the faces of strangers could play an important role in reducing the risk of developing relationships with partners that can be unfaithful,” the researchers said.

What did the study consist of?

To obtain such results, the scientists recruited a group of 1,516 heterosexual adults between 18 and 98 years of age, including 592 men and 924 women. And photographs of the face of 189 people who had collaborated in previous studies were used.

The participants were divided into two groups, one would evaluate the faces of the men and the other, that of the women. In total, 293 men and 472 women rated the photos of women, while 299 men and 452 women judged images of men.

Among the questions that were asked, respondents had to evaluate on scales of numbers how likely these people were to be unfaithful, how attractive they were, their confidence and whether they had a male or female appearance.

The scientists found that the faces rated as more attractive and masculine were also rated as the most unfaithful and, in general, they were right, because those people in the photos had reported cheating on their partners or sought infidelity.

“The evaluators were making precise judgments of infidelity of men’s faces using facial masculinity, a well-established sign of propensity to adopt short-term mating strategies,” says the study. The results of this research add to a long list of studies in which classic features of the infidels have been unraveled. A 2018 study found that men with beards were more likely to cheat on their partners.

Does Not Apply to Women

Interestingly, the same study found that this facility to identify possible unfaithful behavior does not apply to women, as it was more difficult to determine whether they cheated or if they were prone to cheat on their partner.

“We find a precision above chance in the infidelity trials of faces of the same sex in men, but not in women. Conversely, we find a precision above chance for the faces of the opposite sex in women, but not in men “, say the scientists.

“Therefore, both men and women showed an accuracy above chance, but only for the faces of men and not women,” the researchers said, which means that it was more difficult to identify unfaithful women. Although not conclusive, the study’s authors suggested that this could be due to a number of factors, including the popular belief that women are less prone to infidelities than men.

But this belief may be particularly false in certain regions of the world, such as Mexico, as a recent survey of the dating site Ashley Madison, one of the most popular internationally, revealed that the most unfaithful women in the world are Mexican.

Survival Issue

Scientists say that, although modest, the level of accuracy to identify infidels, can have a biological origin “as an evolved adaptation to identify possible cheats and / or poachers,” they said. The researchers considered it logical to link physical attractiveness with the potential to be unfaithful because “attractive individuals are preferred as sexual partners and are subject to more attempts by the opposite sex to attract them to extra partner relationships.” Likewise, other studies have revealed that people who have committed infidelity are very likely to do it again, even if they are discovered in their deception and forgiven.

Thanks to Ava Megan