Cheating is not easy. It’s hurtful and messy, but there is a science to it. Drawing on research in personality psychology, gender studies, and cultural theory, the article dives into why men and women cheat for fundamentally different emotional reasons.
Infidelity is one of the few human behaviours that is simultaneously universal, predictable, and shocking. It destabilises trust, fractures identity, and still remains remarkably consistent across cultures. It has even found a place in the Ten Amendments. Since it has been around for some time, people wanted to understand it. But is there any science in something that personal? Turns out there is; quite a lot of it…
Despite the moral panic around it, cheating is not a child of chaos; it emerges from psychological patterns that research has explained far better than people like to admit. The strongest driving predictors of infidelity are not only romantic dissatisfaction, boredom, or opportunity, but also personality traits. Studies repeatedly show that individuals high in psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism are significantly more likely to engage in cheating. Their combination makes crossing boundaries easier, guilt weaker, and moral inhibition thinner. Psychopathy contributes through its symptoms of impulsivity, thrill-seeking, and diminished empathy. Machiavellianism Machiavellianism is a personality trait marked by cunning, manipulation, deceit, and a cynical disregard for morality, where individuals prioritize self-interest and use others as tools for personal gain. So it is quite predictable that it fuels calculated secrecy and emotional manipulation, turning cheating into a controlled tactic rather than a spontaneous adventure. It makes it easier to keep an affair from a partner for a longer time. Narcissism shapes infidelity through entitlement: the belief that one deserves more admiration, more attention, more pleasure, regardless of commitments.
Yet even outside the common traits, cheating reflects deeper emotional troubles. People do not betray simply for pleasure; they betray when their relationship stops validating their identity. Infidelity becomes a kind of psychological renegotiation, an attempt to feel alive, chosen, desired, or significant when daily life erodes those feelings. Affairs operate like emotional market alternatives: a place where value can be regained when it depreciates at home.
Gender dynamics complicate this still further; studies show that men and women cheat for different psychological reasons. These divergent causes are not only manifestations of biological differences, but also of societal differences. One of the first to point that out was Simone de Beauvoir. Her views on the subject were shaped by her role as the progenitor of much of feminist philosophy, as well as her years long non-monogamous relationship with another famous philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre. Beauvoir believed that society shapes how women and men cheat by imposing completely different roles, opportunities, and limitations on them. Going behind someone’s back often emerged within structures of inequality and power such as the economic dependencies, social scripts that trapped women. Men cheat, because their sexuality was seen as more natural and cheating didn’t violate their status. Women on the other hand, cheat for freedom. For millennia, they have been dependent on men financially, socially, and often, quite literally, legally. This forced them to remain in relationships they did not choose with complete freedom. Betrayal, therefore, was a form of escape from domination, a way to regain a measure of freedom, even if secretly. However, when a woman felt unseen or reduced to a role, betrayal could become: an attempt to regain autonomy, a protest against being “someone’s property.”
This perspective is a bit outdated nowadays, but shows something rather interesting. The power struggle of cheating – a thing that still applies today. Cheating is usually explained by lack of closeness either physical or emotional, low commitment efforts or a desire for more freedom. But all those answers are surface level; there is much more science behind seeing someone on the side.
If you look at the data you can see that men cheat more often than women in general, with surveys showing a higher percentage of men admitting to infidelity while married. But what’s important here is the gap between them. Among the youngest age groups, the rates are similar, but as people get older, the male advantage increases significantly.
Even in today’s world some men are raised to believe that vulnerability is a liability and asking for emotional support makes them weak. He could be numbing pressure, failure, invisibility or feeling less worthy than their current partner. Their affairs tend to be impulsive, sexually motivated, and disconnected from attachment. A man may love his partner deeply yet seek validation elsewhere because the affair gives him a temporary escape from failure, pressure, or invisibility. This is one explanation why older men cheat more. Their infidelity could be about showing that they simply can do it. Because of their status now they are attractive to younger or just women in general, that before wouldn’t even look in their direction. It’s a way for him to regain the power he doesn’t feel internally.
Women, on the other hand, cheat relationally. They are more likely to be in love with their affair partner compared to men. They are much more likely to be emotionally disengaged from their primary partner during an affair. Women do it to escape the emotional aspects of relationships or lack thereof. Female infidelity begins in subtle forms of loneliness: being unheard, unseen, unappreciated. Women often spend years carrying the emotional weight of a relationship until they burn out. Their cheating is less impulsive and more cumulative. It’s a process rather than one decision. At the same time, based on studies women are more likely to be in love with their cheating companion. When a woman cheats, it is usually because, psychologically, she has already left the prior relationship. The affair is a consequence of the relationship’s collapse. But scientists, Gangstad & Thornhill, have also created the “good genes” (dual mating strategy) hypothesis, which posits infidelity allows women to pair the preferred genes of an affair partner with the preferred investment of their primary partner.
These differences reflect cultural conditioning. Men are socialised to externalise esteem – they look outward for validation of desirability. Women are socialised to internalise connection – they seek safety in emotional resonance. The result is a gendered asymmetry: men cheat to feel powerful, women cheat to feel seen. Both betrayals stem from the same unmet need, to feel alive in a world that repeatedly dulls the self, but they take different routes toward that need.
Ultimately, infidelity exposes the parts of relationships that couples avoid confronting. It often is a consequence of someone not wanting to be honest. It’s easier to keep it hidden, then to deal with the emotions of the other person. It reveals unspoken needs, suppressed resentment, emotional asymmetry, personality vulnerabilities, and the psychological pressure points where identity fractures. Infidelity is neither random nor mysterious. It is patterned, psychologically legible, and socially conditioned. And when viewed through the lens of gender dynamics and the some characteristics traits that predict it, cheating becomes a psychological phenomenon shaped by power, personality, and the perennial longing to feel significant in a world that constantly threatens to make us disappear.
I’m a BIG student from Warsaw, Poland — the real-life Carrie Bradshaw (if she swapped New York for Milan and stilettos for climbing shoes). Passionate about bridge, cooking, history and talking about movies like it’s a full-time job.
