The Truth About Cheating

The Truth About Cheating?

The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA - October 29, 2008

By Tara Parker-Pope

If you cheated on your spouse, would you admit it to a researcher?

That question is one of the biggest challenges in the scientific study of marriage, and it helps explain why different studies produce different estimates of infidelity rates in the United States.

Surveys conducted in person are likely to underestimate the real rate of adultery, because people are reluctant to admit such behavior - not just to their spouses but to anyone.

In a study published last summer in t he Journal of Family Psychology , for example, researchers from the University of Colorado and Texas A&M surveyed 4,884 married women using face-to- face interviews and anonymous computer questionnaires. In the interviews, only 1 percent of women said they had been unfaithful to their husbands in the past year; on the computer questionnaire, more than 6 percent did.

E xperts say surveys appearing in sources such as women's magazines may overstate the adultery rate because they suffer from what pollsters call selection bias: The respondents select themselves and may be more likely to report infidelity.

Still, a handful of new studies suggest changes in the marital landscape. Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap: Younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men.

"If you just ask whether infidelity is going up, you don't see really impressive changes," said David Atkins, research associate professor at the University of Washington's Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors. "But if you magnify the picture and you start looking at specific gender and age cohorts, we do start to see some pretty significant changes."

The most consistent data on infidelity come from the General Social Survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Chicago, which has used a national representative sample to track the opinions and social behaviors of Americans since 1972. The survey data show that, in any given year, about 10 percent of married people - 12 percent of men and 7 percent of women - say they have had sex outside their marriage.

But detailed analysis of the data from 1991 to 2006, to be presented next month by Atkins at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies conference in Orlando, Fla., show some shifts. University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For women over 60, the increase is even larger : to 15 percent, up from 5 percent in 1991.

The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have been unfaithful, up from about 15 percent and 12 percent respectively.

Theories vary about why more people appear to be cheating. Among older people, a host of drugs and treatments is making it easier to be sexual and in some cases unfaithful - Viagra , estrogen and testosterone supplements for women , even better hip replacements.

"They've got the physical health to express their sexuality into old age," said Helen Fisher, research professor of anthropology at Rutgers and author of several books on the biological and evolutionary basis of love and sex.

In younger couples, the increasing availability of pornography on the Internet, which has been shown to affect sexual attitudes and perceptions of "normal" behavior, may be playing a role in rising infidelity.

But it is the apparent change in women's fidelity that has sparked the most interest among relationship researchers. It is not clear whether the historical gap between men and women is real or whether women have just been more likely to lie about it.

"Is it that men are bragging about it and women are lying to everybody, including themselves?" Fisher asked. "Men want to think women don't cheat, and women want men to think they don't cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other."

Fisher noted that infidelity is common across cultures, and that in hunting-and-gathering societies there is no evidence that women are any less adulterous than men.

The fidelity gap may be explained more by cultural pressures than any real difference in sex drives between men and women.

While infidelity rates appear to be rising, a vast majority of people still say adultery is wrong, and most men and women do not appear to be unfaithful.

Cheating women

Over 60 The lifetime rate of infidelity for women over 60 increased to 15 percent in 2006, up from 5 percent in 1991.

Under 35 About 15 percent of women under 35 say they have been unfaithful, up from about 12 percent.

Cheating men

Over 60 The lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991.

Under 35 About 20 percent of men under 35 say they have been unfaithful, up from about 15 percent in 1991.

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