Study finds that attractive women are less likely to cheat

THE rock band Dr Hook once lamented that “when you’re in love with a beautiful woman it’s hard”.

But a study suggests it is the less attractive ladies who are responsible for the greatest heartache.

When US researchers followed more than 200 married couples for three and a half years, they discovered that women who considered themselves attractive were far more likely to be faithful. They also found that women who had been more promiscuous in the years before their marriage were less likely to cheat.

In contrast, less attractive females who had limited sexual experience were more likely to engage in extramarital entanglements.

The researchers from Florida State University followed 233 newly married couples to document intimate details about their relationships, including marital satisfaction, long-term commitment, whether they had engaged in infidelity and if they were still together.

Writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jim Mcnulty, the lead author, said: “The most notable predictors of infidelity that varied across sex were own and partner attractiveness. Specifically, own attractiveness was negatively associated with infidelity among women, but not men, suggesting that less attractive women were more likely to engage in infidelity.”

Surprisingly, the researchers found people satisfied with sex in their relationship were more likely to cheat, perhaps suggesting they felt more positive about sex in general.