Men ‘more likely to have affairs than women because they experience stronger …

  • Men have same ability to resist temptation as women
  • But men have stronger desires, psychologists claim
  • Participants had to accept or reject potential partners
  • Scientists then separated effects of impulse control

By
Daily Mail Reporter


PUBLISHED:

23:20 GMT, 28 August 2013


|

UPDATED:

23:21 GMT, 28 August 2013

Men are more likely to have affairs than women because they experience stronger sexual impulses, psychologists have claimed.

Scientists said although men have the same ability to resist temptation as women, this is overriden more often because men have stronger desires.

One of their two studies got participants to report on their impulses when they encountered a real-life tempting - but forbidden - potential partner.

Affair: Scientists said although men have the same ability to resist temptation as women, this is overriden more often because men have a stronger desire

Affair: Scientists said although men have the same ability to resist temptation as women, this is overriden more often because men have a stronger desire

It featured 218 Americans - 70 of whom were men, and the other 148 women, aged 32 on average, reported Pacific Standard magazine.

The other study asked participants to perform a reaction-time task on computers in which they chose to accept or reject potential partners.

The Texas-based researchers then used a technique known as process dissociation to separate the effects of impulse and control.

This second study featured 600 undergraduates - 326 of whom were men, and 274 women - who played the 'partner selection game'.

Decisions: One of the two studies asked participants to perform a reaction-time task in which they chose to accept or reject potential partners

Decisions: One of the two studies asked participants to perform a reaction-time task in which they chose to accept or reject potential partners

‘In both studies, men succumbed to the sexual temptations more than women,’ the researchers said.

'Men succumbed to the sexual temptations more than women'

Natasha Tidwell and Paul Eastwick, US researchers

‘And this sex difference emerged because men experienced stronger impulses, not because they exerted less intentional control.’

The research was led by Natasha Tidwell of Texas AM University in College Station and Paul Eastwick of the University of Texas at Austin.

It was published in the latest Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Open bundled references in tabs:

Leave a Reply