London - It is said that when a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy.
And research suggests the saying may well be right. Partners who are “poached” from others are more likely to cheat in their new relationship, psychologists have found.
Relationships that are formed by stealing someone’s partner are also more likely to be unhappy generally and are at a higher risk of break-up.
Scientists from the University of South Alabama asked 443 men and women how much they agreed with a series of statements to gauge their levels of commitment and satisfaction in their relationships.
The statements included “I am aware that there are plenty more ‘fish in the sea’”, “I rarely notice other good-looking or attractive people” and “our relationship makes me very happy”.
Between 10 percent and 30 percent of participants in each of the studies said they were in relationships that began when they left one romantic partner for another.
Professor Joshua Foster, lead author of the studies by the University of South Alabama, said: “Individuals who were poached by their current romantic partners were less committed, less satisfied, and less invested in their relationships.”
They also paid more attention to romantic alternatives, perceived their alternatives to be of higher quality, and engaged in higher rates of infidelity compared to non-poached participants.’
The results, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, also showed that those who left one partner for another were more likely to possess negative personality traits such as being self-absorbed, vain or arrogant, as the scientists expected.
But they were surprised to find that “introverts” were more likely to be poached than extroverts.
“The introversion finding was surprising because previous research suggested that people who get a lot of poaching attempts tend to have outgoing personalities (they’re extroverted),” Professor Foster said.
“But we found that people who are successfully poached are the opposite, that is socially passive. It might be that being outgoing puts you in a position to get a lot of attempts - perhaps simply because you’re around people more - but being passive makes you more likely to go along with the attempts and actually get poached.” - Daily Mail