Sex researcher explains why people cheat | Evolution Lab Report #1

[@murphymacken]

Sections 0:00 Introduction & Qualitative Method 0:53 Top 3 Reasons Women Cheat 2:42 Top 3 Reasons Men Cheat 3:27 The Limits of Self-Report 5:03 (Evolutionary section begins) 5:11 Why Infidelity Evolved 7:29 Why Men Cheat 8:59 Evolved Psychology Isn't Always Conscious 9:43 Why Women Cheat (Dual-Mating vs. Mate-Switching) 12:53 Quantitative Methods & Hypotheses 14:14 Results & Discussion 18:34 Signing off!

[@Taker1317]

Love these longer videos! It's great to see an actual expert talk about this topic with research, instead of some podcast dude-bro.

[@skyee7512]

Came from your tiktok! Love to see science education right from the source.

[@marcusmagnificus1984]

That was great, thank you! Satisfyingly and interestingly enough, since we have this "natural tendency" as a human species, this sort of matches what wise people advise as to how we can completely avoid cheating/infidelity. I would appreciate it a lot if you could also share with us how to affair proof ourselves and our relationships from a researcher's standpoint.

[@glueplay]

What do "wise" people say about avoiding cheating.

[@patrickfuller6132]

Robert Sapolskys angle on all this would add so much. The biology psychology at that Elite level mixed with Mack's great studies I'd love to see! ❤️ 😍

[@bryanutility9609]

Men cheat to stay women cheat to leave 😂

[@musashi542]

both degens .

[@mike777881]

Another possible explanation would be gene diversity. If a woman has children with multiple men, then there is a greater probability that at least one child will have more advantageous genes. This is similar to why investors typically choose multiple stocks instead of just one.

[@tarsismiranda3199]

Bro is handsome

[@VG-qu3vb]

His girlfriend is NOT it.. I think he has low self esteem honestly

[@vickyoli]

@@VG-qu3vbWTF…

[@vickyoli]

@@VG-qu3vbshe is really pretty AND smart as well. Smart guys aren’t looking for bimbos…

[@MA-gu2up]

​​​​@@vickyoli They are good at getting degrees But if you see the richest top 1% of men, they also tend to have the highest iq on average compared to others(iq correlates strongly with earnings for men, but weakly for women). Their wives are mostly stay at home moms, meaning that their smartness isn't reflected in the labor market directly, but through their children probably as very rich men tend to have more kids on average Those men have more degrees than average, and their wives, too, have more degrees than average, but the husband's have more.

[@murphymacken]

@@MA-gu2upthis is incorrect, educational hypogyny is more common than educational hypergyny in the West, and people generally mate assortatively (similar IQ/education)

[@bellywf5033]

Amazing work, Mr. Murphy. It was extremely interesting to listen, will give your report a read right now!

[@domovoi_0]

Great stuff brother. Love and blessings!

[@PooplexCanal]

I'd love to see you talk to Dr. Orion Taraban

[@thomaseberhard9056]

What an interesting and informative Video!!! KZbin is gold again!!

[@BenChaverin]

Absolutely fascinating. Would be super interested to see more about what physically attractive features are considered evolutionarily beneficial. Also, would love for you to place the camera slightly farther away so we can see your gestures and shoulders. The frame was a bit cramped.

[@slnt6542]

Physically attractive features for women: youth, fertility, and overall beauty as that can be seen as a measure of health in some sort. For men: broad shoulders tend to rated as one of the most attractive body parts and features that indicate ability to acquire resources (not entirely sure of what this might consist of). For both across all cultures: clear skin, average sized features, and propinquity (physical distance although that is not a physical feature)

[@vickyoli]

I was LITERALLY putting “Lumify” on my eyes when you said “indicative of health, such as white sclera” 👁️👄👁️

[@murphymacken]

We call this a “dishonest signal” in bio

[@davids.9313]

The socio economic status of the sample population's country should be taken into account, if we divide mating motivation into 2: physical attraction and financial ability/support, western countries have more financially emancipated women ergo resource motivation and pressure is less pronounced in them as they are more $$ independent, additionally state support for monoparental families(like cheaper housing, child benefits, food stamps..etc) in countries such as the UK and the US. From a rational pov, the resource necesity mechanism of attraction would be shrunk to its minimum point. It would be interesting to see if changing the sample country to a poorer less emancipated, less wellfarian country would change the balance of these 2 forces, countries like khazakstan, russia...etc. P.S: Its nice to see that you read most of the comments

[@shyampadmanabhan4171]

I notice that in evaluating the 'revenge' strategies for men and women, you were still laboring under the assumption that men cheat more than women? What do you make of the fact that women are less likely to report cheating than men, as well as the fact that in the 18-30 demographic (which grew up in a society with ever-loosening sexual mores) women are actually more likely to cheat than men? In addition, women have an easier time obtaining affair partners and have an easier time not getting caught due to the ease of sexual access to complete strangers. I can't imagine that too many of the women who cheat and get away with it are present in your sample, so would this skew the results in either direction? Moreover, could it be hypothesized that the borderline draconian restrictions on specifically female sexuality that are present in nearly every historical civilization are a product of the fact that women are more libidinous and unfaithful than men? All around fantastic work, looking forward to seeing more from you!

[@ohnoohnono]

Top comment. Hope it's not too much out of topic from what you said, but it seems that the redpill community is trying to the death to say it's the men the one that have the most ''power''' '.. ie: higher sex drive, high value men should cheat and do cheat while their wives stay obedient forever and absolutely don't cheat and don't want to cheat etc, women are monogamous by nature..all of this bs which is insane if you look at objective reality....The goal to me seems to be to obviously keep their audience deluded and to keep the illusion that men are the shit or something...

[@viviennebenet1991]

In your study, you found evidence supporting the dual-mating strategy hypothesis, where women displayed stronger physical attraction to their affair partners and stronger parental attraction to their primary partners. However, considering the complexity of human mating strategies and the socio-ecological variability, how do you reconcile these findings with the notion that infidelity in women might also be influenced by a combination of non-evolutionary factors, such as socio-cultural norms and individual psychological differences? Specifically, how might socio-cultural factors like varying degrees of stigma around infidelity or different relationship expectations across cultures modulate the expression of these evolutionary strategies, and what methodologies would you propose to disentangle these intertwined influences in future research?

[@bryanutility9609]

Society is F’ed up and people are miserable.

[@TheElectricCheeseProductions22]

was originally going to pursue psychology but decided I had to go in for music composition because that's where my more stronger, real desires laid. I was interested in psychology because I often did contemplate people, how they worked, why, and why we were the way we were and did the things we did. I never really read established literature because I'm a lazy prick but I invested a lot of time into musical development so I had to go for that. However, watching this, I appreciate the deep intellectual exploration of the subject and I know that because I chose not to pursue the field, unless I decide to completely shift my life career after several years of working hard in a completely different direction, I'll never be able to participate in this sort of activity, have this sort of discussion with people to the caliber you can. So I hope that I don't come to regret it. Though at least I have the fortune of living in a time and place where I can so easily access this media and witness it and appreciate it. Or you could direct me to what you think are the best potential explanations But whatever though, it's not like I would have ended up going to Oxford so

[@michaelallen1154]

When men & women say "i had relationship dissatisfaction" it is _way_ too general.

[@slnt6542]

I would love to see how much of a role the expansion of social media plays into this as it makes cheating more accessible. Many divorce attorneys claim that when facebook came out divorce rates and infidelity went off the roofs.

[@ganjagangja]

What you didnt say- Mate switching didnt happen most of the time, but not because the woman wouldnt have wanted that outcome, but because the men who they cheat with also have better mate value therefore it os harder for the woman to secure a commitment from such a man. Also, the social repercussions for a woman cheating can be devastating, and women care more about being a "good chimp", - exclusion from the tribe could have meant death for women for most of human history.

[@ohnoohnono]

that implies that women want committment out of every relationship in the first place tho..it depends on which woman...the more shit she has together the more she genuinely doesn't care about committment...then, if you say that attractive men are rare and so women want to hold them down then ok that's another story

[@ttrainor70]

Lack of self-control, obviously.

[@Slowensko98]

chief of red pill. very well spoken

[@BlackJesusChrist666]

You know it’s over when Chad light Murphy is breaking down super high I.Q. research to us simp(le) sub humans. 😩😅

[@murphymacken]

It’s never over 🤘

[@_big_man_69_]

Speak for yourself

[@epayne]

I'm interested to hear about how you personally use what you've learned in this field.

[@murphymacken]

@@epayne I don’t, I just follow my heart.

[@Garhkumaun]

Xddddd

[@BenChaverin]

So underrated

[@biggabaye7906]

This is seriously fascinating. Really good work.

[@ganjagangja]

Good work on the study. Love this stuff👌

[@catsaresocute650]

Not really you just need to account for it's spread in your theory. For example maybe it's wide-spread because we often miss the point where it's appropriate to end a relationship rather then cheat.

[@ohnoohnono]

good point

[@BramCohen]

Men do have affairs for mate switching it's just that the switch is predicated on a pregnancy happening

[@justanotherhomosapian5101]

I'd say the switch happens when the primary parter finds out and leaves. At least from my personal observation

[@labdian]

This helped me understand my behaviour and predict it according to my hormonal cycle, and to make better decisions. Hopefully. I'm no longer considering reproducing at all, so dual mating/mate switching theories shouldn't be relevant for me, but surprisingly the principles still apply. I'd be so very interested to see the data for a bit older populations, like pre- or peri-menopausal women and does the motivation to cheat change at all.

[@master11manifestor]

I feel like I could've guessed these, myself. I don't understand why anyone would over or under report though. 🤔

[@samsprague3158]

So if I understand correctly, the premise of the Evo argument is: monogamy evolved due to benefits for raising offspring -> affairs evolved on top of that due to one or more of these proposed benefits. But to me, it seems more intuitive to look at affairs as resulting from impulses that were presumably present long before monogamy was established as a social norm, namely humans being attracted to each other and desiring sex. Without monogamy, and especially without a robust understanding of the health consequences of sex and pregnancy, I’d think we would see any two mutually attracted people becoming sexual partners if given the opportunity. So if that’s the case, why do we need these evo justifications to explain affairs? People like to have sex with people they’re attracted to, and sometimes the benefits of monogamy aren’t enough to overcome that desire. I get that there are these other reasons people cheat like relationship dissatisfaction or revenge, but I just don’t see how those call for an evo psych basis, because they don’t inherently have anything to do with sex that I can see. In other words, why can’t affairs be accounted for with the same evolutionary motives that we attribute to sex in general?

[@jackiec3919]

I would like to see reasons for affair in people who have already had children vs those who haven’t Im curious to see if there is a difference between those two categories

[@seodric1036]

It would be interesting to see, how many of the men, is cheating with someone younger ( more fertile ), than their primary partner.

[@murphymacken]

This is something I want to find out next year.

[@annabanzon313]

Sexless marriage? Spouse who creates voids aka neglectful. Outside temptations since homewreckers target marrieds and homewreckers are very competitive.

[@murphymacken]

“Sexual dissatisfaction” relatively common as motivations went, just not top 3

[@anne-mariewalsh6308]

How about falling in love with someone else? (Or never being truly in love with primary partner?)

[@murphymacken]

Very low-frequency in our sample.

[@ssmoky]

@@murphymacken Interestingly, anecdotally its highest frequency for women, combined with dissatisfaction. to say that you never loved your partner seems sociopathic and extremely socially unacceptable

[@tybenz2533]

I love the concept of the video, but I believe it’s truly hard to grasp or understand inherently why most people do it, we live in one of the most selfish driven “Me ME Me” societies ever and I think it’s simply boils down to selfish motivations in most cases. Such as “ my affair partner was hot” on top of that person gave the individual who cheated what they needed and lacked from the relationship that they had.

[@azirious666]

Simple for women is more money while for men more conveniences

[@Riknuzulto]

IM GOING TO TAKE MY LIFE. TOOO LATE 🤣

[@overcraft1441]

Oxford study!

[@Lawrence_of_Asia]

So, the partner that they cheated with is seen as a less better father and long term because she sees him as naughty which is the primary attraction mechanism…

[@murphymacken]

Not shown in my study. Attraction as in “handsome.”

[@Michel-wn9tr]

English language here is quite advanced. I'm not native, it's hard to get, need to return later with a dictionary.

[@rag-4036]

At 9:53 what is the word you used, suspandral?

[@murphymacken]

Spandrel

[@tripleeyeemoji2685]

I want to in game myself. Life is unfair. Be a good man. Raise Chad’s child. You can’t win if you’re not attractive.

[@murphymacken]

To be fair, most women don’t cheat, and many women in our sample cheated with less attractive men than their primary partners. Life isn’t fair, true, but it’s also not simple; plenty of unattractive men”win.”

[@bryanutility9609]

I’m just amazed anyone, much less majority can actually be satisfied by monogamy. Not me. I want variety & adventure.

[@Ogudomon]

Resource. More Kids means more humans, but less resources for each of these kids. That's why women cheat less. Cheating is less forgiven for women because they lose the one who proven for them. Less Resource need mean less need to work and less risk for men. That's why also men are much more into cooperate between each other than compete with each other... Because cooperation brings resources. If you stop to see, collective sports has a bigger audience than individual sports. Hence men interest in Football (also american football).

[@bryanutility9609]

@@Ogudomon but individual sports are still better. It just requires better people & higher standards. I really don’t think most men want lots of sex, and most are so low status they are happy to have just 1 person to have sex with & watch football, aspire to nothing but comfort.

[@catsaresocute650]

So because it's not about a proposal about what people think now, but rather an evolutionary perspective (more game theory then social analysis) you persume to be able to draw conclusions based on social analysis? Is that motivation something I understand right?

[@catsaresocute650]

You'd be percicly doing the opposit of understanding evolution (in your given terms). You'd be doing sociology

[@catsaresocute650]

And you should only do sociology with it's best practice tools. What that isn't. Because while there's elements of culture that erradicate a culture eventually if it's to evolutionary-bad that only applies to the entire culture. Things like what motivates norm violations isn't explainable by evolution because the pressure of evolution on the proposed area of study isn't great enogh

[@jasondeb]

Macken, are there any studies on baby face Males and dating?

[@murphymacken]

Facial femininity and neoteny are researched yes

[@bryanutility9609]

I think you’ll find the best parenting is with one’s biological children due to shared genes by both parents.

[@moastray5093]

More reasons to be single

[@MA-gu2up]

Hey Mr . Murphy I thought of something about this data, there was a lot of women who did it for revenge or something Could you control for those? Meaning taking them out from the data, and just looking at what the others say I expect those women who did it for revenge will not be particular about the men they are cheating with when it comes to their parenting ability or character in general, they are doing it for revenge so they are motivated to just follow a strategy of pure looks or something, so i think they skew the results a lot

[@MA-gu2up]

Also, can I get the detailed qualitative data on what every person explained their motivation as?

[@murphymacken]

@@MA-gu2up sure! The data is public so you can look at it. Also, it’s hard to explain; I agree it would “make sense” to cheat with a hot partner for revenge, but the question is from an evolutionary perspective, why does it “make sense” to apes like us? Hope that helps.

[@MA-gu2up]

@@murphymacken I tried to download the file that contained the qualitative data(their detailed answers of why they cheated), and it didn't come out. I don't focus as much on the attractiveness part. Being with a more attractive partner isn't against mate switching, especially since women consider personality characters in what they see as attractive. What matters more here is how they evaluate the men in general, the mate value, and so on You found a non-significant difference in your data, but that could be because the women who did it for revenge skew the results a lot. You could say why those women would do it like this? But some actions could just be emotional reactions that people committed when angry, and they don't really have other motivations. And this(revenge) isn't a common thing for women as a whole to do, so it doesn't really have to have an adaptive reason, it could just be a remnant of another adaptive behaviour, or an extreme manifestation (mate guarding through jealousy)

[@YakubBlackmann]

Because they want to win.

[@YakubBlackmann]

Oh wait he was talking about women.

[@Ogudomon]

Interesting... Now how that data correlate with society situation? I do think, by my superficial perception that nowadays cheating, mainly from women, is more acceptable because there's LESS resources (at least perceived) to raise children. Which also make men who are considered better parents (aka rich ones) better target to raise the offspring. Also, how that data correlate with countries where social welfare and life quality is bigger (aka, everyone pay the bills through taxes) to countries where the parents are the main resource and care (aka, the parents pay the bills).

[@boldizsarszabo]

Water is wet ahh study

[@JohnVKaravitis]

10:44 Wouldn't the "mate" with the "best" genes also be the "best" provider? I mean, are we nothing better than the ape version of the cuckoo bird?

[@v9b23j]

Interesting discussion supporting the adoption of a dual mating strategy by both men and women. I've always supported the hypothesis that men's unconscious motives for having an affair are to fulfill their evolutionary desire to increase the genetic diversity of their offspring. And in a monogamous relationship, infidelity is a strategy to fulfill that desire. In addition, the Coolidge effect may drive men to cheat more than women. It's the tendency of males to experience renewed sexual arousal when introduced to novel females while loosing interest in their primary sexual partner which is a well-documented mammalian trait. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqfIpoKgobChZqsfeature=shared It's possible that women may have underreported physical attraction as one of their motivations for having an affair, as Macken revealed that women have a strong preference for physical attractiveness in their affair partners (77% more likely than in their primary partners).

[@CherryFlower24]

So you're blaming it on a animal drive. You don't see women that ovulate looking for the best top 10% of men to f*ck though. How about you apply some discipline?

[@FakeOATH]

Monogamy is never good for any species while once males take over the position of power, they will definitely want monogamy.

[@yemi3266]

No

[@FakeOATH]

@@yemi3266 By "No" what do you mean bro

[@sorrychangedmyusername3594]

My attention span fucked to pursue a stable relationship nowadays.

[@saleemali594]

Good

[@barry1807]

As a narcissist who would make a terrible father, but a great side guy to some sexy wives, this is a great find

[@BenChaverin]

Bro 💀💀💀

[@justanotherhomosapian5101]

Ahhh😂😂😂

[@joshuablair252]

​@@BenChaverinI can't get off unless I have sex with someone else's wife. But it's okay, because it makes the wives happy, the husbands don't figure it out, I get to laugh at the husband while I'm clapping cheeks, so where's the harm in it if the only thing that matters in life is being happy? It actually makes me a hero because it makes me brave to do this, and it makes the wife brave because most people are too shy to chase their dreams. I've been chasing mine, and I thank God every day I've been able to fulfill so many dreams. I also never share my real name, I also never bring them back to my house. I carry a gun, so nothing will ever happen.

[@bear8190]

Get help

[@dalila3398]

Are you Dolph Lundgren lost son?

[@s1m2u3r4f]

if you need better explanation listen to Rolo Tomassi, he knows how to explain results of this study. women: “I am not hääääääppy, that is yout fault!“

[@CherryFlower24]

Rollo as an oyster IQ

[@vickyoli]

@@CherryFlower24i need to use this phrase more often😂

[@modernmasculinity6560]

So, in other words, your entire study is based upon cheaters being honest? Lmao

[@murphymacken]

@@modernmasculinity6560 did you watch all of it? IMO it’s a concern for the qualitative data but not as worrying for the quantitative data.

[@modernmasculinity6560]

@@murphymacken Any “study” that relies upon the honesty of the study participants providing their rationale behind behavior that is by definition inherently dishonest seems a little suspect to say the least. But by all means, let’s believe the cheaters and base our findings on that

[@murphymacken]

@@modernmasculinity6560 wait did you not watch the whole vid

[@modernmasculinity6560]

@@murphymacken Yes I saw where you mentioned the limitations of self reporting but you failed to mention the degree to which those limitations impacted your findings. Take your findings of the top 3 reasons why women cheat for example. Literally all 3 place the blame for the cheating squarely on the victim. If it were any other form of domestic abuse, such victim blaming would be rightfully dismissed as valid. Imagine doing a study where you ask, male perpetrators of domestic violence to self-report the reasons why they beat their wives and accepting any answer that blamed their victims? Like any abusive behavior, cheating has 100% to do with the abuser and 0% to do with the victim of that abuse.

[@murphymacken]

@@modernmasculinity6560 I didn’t accept it, I said “take it with a grain of salt” and clearly expressed doubt.

[@LVSJT]

👍

[@Music-hn9hf]

You look like a model

[@justanotherhomosapian5101]

Are you still vegan/vegetarian?

[@murphymacken]

Yes

[@blackpillbackshots8489]

@@murphymacken lol does your brown girlfriend make you some good vegan curry goop?

[@sarahalderman3126]

So men cheat because they weren’t committed to their partner and women cheated because their partner wasn’t committed. Ground breaking 😂

[@murphymacken]

I didn’t say this?

[@lightartis228]

nothing kills the practical value of the thing more then overcomplicating the thing... love works in just same way as any other habit...you want to get rid off it? stop doing it on regular basis...you want to develop it and keep it? start doing it on regular basis... romantic love consists of sexual and none sexual attraction combo... just duck each other like at least few times a week and you will minimise probability as much as possible of anyone cheating cuzz it makes no sense to go out looking for another smex source when yours balls are already empty or yours po tang sctrached lol...disagree? how often did you heard a couple who cheated on each other when they were smashing on regular basis vs a couples who were sexless? i rest my case for none smexual attraction you want to make yours a partner a source of seratonin(bonding hormone) and you do that by finding an excuse for none smexual touching to happen all the time: hug whenever yours partner gets home even if you mad,going outside ?hold hands...etc... every couple who got dissociated from each other were less touchy towards each other then they were with their platonic friends xD... those tips will not magicly solve whatever problems you might have in relationship,but it will make you go through those challanges together instead of using those problems as an excuse to break up...

[@AlfredBakovich-ms5dt]

Lmfao 🤣 the science 🧬 is out it’s not men it’s the tickle