A study published in Frontiers in Psychology has revealed that a certain type of dater is actually more likely to cheat than others, and it’s not those who tend to be a little more promiscuous.
We all have our own approaches to dating. Some of us have rules about how many dates need to take place before we take a date home, others will date multiple people at once until they’re certain about a potential lover. And then there are those that fall truly, madly, deeply in love every single time.
For those lovers, those romantics, those big ol’ softies, psychologists have coined the name ‘emophilia’ and, according to Forbes: “Emophilia, also known as emotional promiscuity, is defined as the tendency to fall in love quickly and often.
“Those with emophilia develop an unflinchingly certain and all-encompassing passion for a romantic interest over a short period of time.”
Researchers used a sample of Scandinavian respondents to determine whether a tendency towards falling in love quickly and often was related to somebody’s tendency towards infidelity.
Participants reported how many romantic relationships they’d had and admitted how many times they had been unfaithful.
The researchers then examined their findings using the Emotional Promiscuity Scale, a popular measure of emophilia.
What they found was that yes, there appears to be a link between falling in love easily and infidelity.
The researchers said: “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.”
However, for the lovers out there, don’t judge yourself too harshly just yet. As the study was cross-sectional and based entirely on self-reporting, it’s not definitive just yet.
The researchers suggested: “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.”
Interesting!
