Next time you are talking with a potential mate, listen up and
you might just hear their cheating heart.
Researchers have discovered that people can tell how likely a
person of the opposite sex is to be a cheater, just by listening to
their voice.
"This is really important given our evolutionary history," said
researcher Jillian O'Connor, of McMaster's
University in Canada. "Infidelity is
incredibly costly, people risk raising children that aren't their
own and losing resources." [Financially Dependent Men More Likely
to Cheat]
The researchers quizzed about 120 male and female college
students. They recorded either a male or female speaking vowel
sounds and then made higher- and lower-pitch versions, which they
played for participants.
They had the participants rate the attractiveness of each pair
of voices, and then asked them how likely they thought it would be
for that person to be a cheater. The ladies associated the
lower-pitched male voices with cheating, while the guys associated
the higher-pitched female voices with cheating. The males weren't
able to tell if another man was likely to stray based on his voice,
though.
Voice pitch is related to sex hormone levels, the researchers
said. The more testosterone a male has, the lower his voice, and
the more estrogen a woman has, the higher her voice. Additional sex
hormones have also been linked with an increase likelihood of
carrying on cheating relationships and having more sexual
partners.
"There are definitely social, cultural and psychological factors
as well," O'Connor told LiveScience. "But
there is an association between infidelity risk and hormone levels
in men and women."
Women are attracted to men with high testosterone levels,
possibly because it weakens the immune system. If a man can have
high levels of testosterone and still be healthy and fit, he must
have a good immune system, the thinking goes. High
testosterone levels are also correlated with dominant
behavior and high social status within groups, both good qualities
in a mate.
It's likely these voice-reading abilities evolved to detect
infidelity because it's costly (in terms of relationship investment
and the cost of potential offspring) to be dating someone who is
likely to cheat.
"It allows us to choose a mate that is likely to stick around
and have children, and not do so with other people," O'Connor
said.
The team is currently working to determine if there is a
relationship between voice pitch and actual behavior in real
people, to determine if men who naturally have low voices are more
sexually promiscuous and more likely to cheat than those with
higher-pitched voices.
-- Yahoo!
