Scientists reveal why you may be more likely to be a cheater than to fall in love
If you love the idea of love, I've got bad news for you as it might mean you are more likely to cheat on your significant other - which is not very loving is it?
We've all been there - you exchange eye contact with a very attractive person, and suddenly, you find yourself already planning the wedding and deciding your kids' names.
It sounds like something out of a rom-com - where 'love at first sight' usually prevails.
However, according to a new study, it could be possibly affecting your love life in more negative ways.
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When it comes to 'falling in love', however, it is a different feeling for everyone.
But it is how easily and often you 'fall in love', known as emophilia, that is potentially concerning.
The 2024 study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, defines it as a 'one intercorrelated phenomenon'.
However, the study also approaches the concept of emophilia with some distance - largely because research on it is 'quite limited'.
The study recruited 2,600 participants through ads and online surveys measuring romantic information, with their levels of emophilia later being investigated using the Emotional Promiscuity Scale (EPS).
According to researchers, it is a 'two-factored scale [that] measures how often and easily a person falls in love'.
The team then moved on to investigating the links - if any - between emophilia and other personality traits.
While emophilia had a tiny correlation with psychopathy and narcissism, it also had a small positive correlation with traits like agreeableness and openness.
However, there was a downside regarding chances of infidelity, as the study says: "The tendency to fall in love easily and often […] might lead the individual to engage in new romantic relationships more frequently.
"Falling in love easily and often may also explain emophilia’s association with unfaithfulness, as it may lead the individual to develop romantic feelings toward someone outside their relationship.”
But the study further notes that it's still just a possibility, adding: "It might be that instead of emophilia causing the number of relationships/affairs, the direction could be opposite, in which scores on emophilia were at least in part a consequence of the number of relationships/affairs.
"One can reason that those who have been in many relationships, and/or cheated many times, might reason in hindsight that they might also have been in love many times, as it is common, and it is probably more socially desirable, to view relationship formation/cheating as being related to love."
Either way, it's not an excuse that I think would fly with your scorned partner, do you?
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Science
Mia Williams