In a study that would horrify the church lady, a University of Texas psychologist has discovered that men are twice as likely to stay with a girlfriend who has cheated with a woman, than one who has cheated with another man.
Women were the polar opposite, more likely to drop a boyfriend who cheated with a man rather than another woman.
According to the researchers, the disparity is largely evolutionary.
“A robust jealousy mechanism is activated in men and women by different types of cues — those that threaten paternity in men and those that threaten abandonment in women,” says Jaime C. Confer, the study’s lead researcher.
The study showed, via a survey of 700 college students, that men were 50 percent more likely to continue seeing a partner who engaged in a homosexual affair and only 22 percent likely to stay with a heterosexual cheater. Conversely, women were only 21 percent likely to stay with a homosexual cheater but 28 percent likely to continue dating a boyfriend who had a heterosexual affair.
Keeping it all in the family, Confer conducted the study with her father, Mark D. Cloud, a Lock Haven University psychology professor.
The father/daughter team was surprised by their findings, largely because of the unfavorable view of homosexuality many men have.
“These findings are even more remarkable given that homosexuality attitude surveys show men have more negative attitudes toward homosexuality and to be less supportive of civil rights for same-sex couples than women. However, this general trend of men showing lower tolerance for homosexuality than women is reversed in the one fitness-enhancing situation — female homosexuality,” said the pair.