Is ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’ true? Study says yes

A recent study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour says infidelity is innate.

The large-scale study saw researchers examine 484 participants in mixed gender romantic relationships.

Participants were asked to report their own sexual involvement, having sexual relations with someone other than their partner, and if they had suspected their partners of infidelity in each romantic relationship they had been in.

It was found that people who had messed around in their first relationship were three times more likely to cheat in their next relationship compared to those who had stayed faithful.

Those who knew that their previous partners had cheated on them were found to be twice as likely to have their next partners do the same.

Neil Garnett, a researcher at Princeton Neuroscience, explained the power behind cheating and the emotional reaction towards it.

“What our study and others suggest is a powerful factor that prevents us from cheating is our emotional reaction to it, how bad we feel essentially, and the process of adaptation reduces this reaction, thereby allowing us to cheat more,” he said.

“With serial cheaters, it could be the case that they initially felt bad about cheating, but have cheated so much they’ve adapted to their ways and simply don’t feel bad about cheating any more.

“Another possibility is that they never felt bad about cheating to begin with, so they didn’t need adaptation to occur, they were comfortable with it from the get-go.”