Definition
The assessment of visual or auditory information in relation to a potential mate’s future likelihood of sexual unfaithfulness.
Introduction
Both men and women are vulnerable to the fitness risks of selecting an unfaithful long-term mate. Owing to this selection pressure, individuals who perceive and attend to infidelity cues during mate search may be better able to avoid the potential fitness costs of cuckoldry from unfaithful female mates, or reduced investment and protection from unfaithful male mates. Cues to infidelity stem from hormonally dependent traits, such as the degree of facial and vocal sexual dimorphism (male masculinity, female femininity). These cues contribute to perceptions of infidelity independently of their attractiveness and also have implications for mate selection.
Male Masculinity
Research suggests that women use markers of underlying testosterone to assess the risk of male infidelity....
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O’Connor, J.J.M. (2018). Perceptions of Infidelity Cues. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1719-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1719-1
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