Men and women have differing parental investment needs with respect to relationships (Trivers 1972) and place emphasis on different characteristics when evaluating potential partners. So, not surprisingly, when it comes to mating, both sexes engage in a type of contest, so to speak, where deception occurs on the part of both sexes (Grammer et al. 2000) and both sexes expect the opposite sex to deceive and lie in order to gain a mate (Keenan et al. 1997; Benz et al. 2005). But, both men and women report being upset when they are deceived and lied to (Haselton et al. 2005), and men assume women are being deceiving the majority of the time (Goetz and Causey 2009).
The deception that occurs often centers around characteristics that are preferred by the opposite sex in order to facilitate one’s outcome in intersexual competition (Benz et al. 2005; Keenan et al. 1997). The opposite sex’s ability to detect deception on the part of a partner would also help them compete intersexually. But, there is an “arms race” between female deceptive skill and male detection of deception skill. Men have evolved abilities that help them detect when women are being deceitful. However, since women’s deceptive abilities are also evolving, men are not always successful at detecting deception.
Men place an emphasis on women’s attractiveness when they are evaluating partners (Buss 1989, 2006). Not surprisingly, women tend to deceive men by altering their physical attributes, specifically by engaging in self-enhancing behaviors (Tooke and Camire 1991). But, men tend to fail at detecting changes in women’s physical appearance, and the research indicates that men’s detection of deception tends to be no better than chance (Klaver et al. 2009). A real-life example of a man’s failure to detect physical appearance changes on the part of a woman involves the case of a man who sued his wife after discovering her plastic surgery (Li 2013).
One way men could be able to detect physical appearance deception on the part of a woman would be via pheromones. Women are most fertile and most reproductively fit when they are ovulating, and artificial pheromones do not increase attractiveness (Grammer et al. 2005). Thus, even though a woman may alter her appearance to appear more beautiful, a man would still be able to determine if he is being deceived by focusing on the pheromone profile the woman is emitting.
Another area where women may seek to deceive a man is regarding being sexually unfaithful. Women may engage in this deception because a man’s reaction to a female partner’s sexual infidelity may involve physical violence against the woman (Daly et al. 1982). If a man fails to detect sexual infidelity on his female partner’s part, he runs the risk of being cuckolded into investing in another man’s offspring, wasting his resources, and thus reducing his fitness and genetic legacy. Research shows that men are indeed best at detecting sexual infidelity, rather than emotional infidelity on a partner’s part (Shackelford and Buss 1997). Men focus on cues such as “increased reference to and time spent with another person”; “passive rejection of partner/inconsiderateness”; “acting guilty and being anxious toward a partner”; “angry, critical, and argumentative toward a partner”; “emotional disengagement from a partner”; reluctance to spend time with a partner”; reluctance to discuss a certain person”; and relationship and dissatisfaction/loss of love for a partner” to detect infidelity on a female partner’s part. These points suggest men have developed adaptations to help them detect deception on the part of women.
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Joel Wade, T., Salerno, K., Moran, J. (2018). Male Detection of Deception. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2016-1
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