Can you predict infidelity just by hearing someone’s voice?
.
Yes. Men with more masculine voices and women with more feminine voices are both more likely to cheat:
Sexual infidelity can be costly to members of both the extra-pair and the paired couple. Thus, detecting infidelity risk is potentially adaptive if it aids in avoiding cuckoldry or loss of parental and relationship investment. Among men, testosterone is inversely related to voice pitch, relationship and offspring investment, and is positively related to the pursuit of short-term relationships, including extra-pair sex. Among women, estrogen is positively related to voice pitch, attractiveness, and the likelihood of extra-pair involvement. Although prior work has demonstrated a positive relationship between men’s testosterone levels and infidelity, this study is the first to investigate attributions of infidelity as a function of sexual dimorphism in male and female voices. We found that men attributed high infidelity risk to feminized women‟s voices, but not significantly more often than did women. Women attributed high infidelity risk to masculinized men‟s voices at significantly higher rates than did men. These data suggest that voice pitch is used as an indicator of sexual strategy in addition to underlying mate value. The aforementioned attributions may be adaptive if they prevent cuckoldry and/or loss of parental and relationship investment via avoidance of partners who may be more likely to be unfaithful.
Source: “Voice Pitch Influences Perceptions of Sexual Infidelity” from Evolutionary Psychology, 2011. 9(1): 64-78
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
Do we change our voice when we talk to attractive people of the opposite sex?
Things you didn’t know about sex
An easy way for women to be more attractive to men and men to be more attractive to women
