Is Cheryl Cole nodding enthusiastically at the latest amazing “discovery” that less intelligent men are more likely cheat on their partners than their clever brothers?
According to an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, men with fewer brain cells to their heads simply aren’t programmed to enjoy a monogamous relationship.
Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, writing in the March edition of Social Psychology Quarterly, believes that men have always been “mildly polygamous” and that monogamy is a late development.
But the academic, who a few years ago wrote a paper that concluded beautiful people were more likely to have daughters, believes more intelligent people are more likely to evolve (and adopt new ways) than your less brainy type.
He isn’t being sexist, or picking on men who use what’s in their trousers to formulate a thought, because apparently the theory does not apply to women. This is because, in evolutionary terms, women are expected to be faithful to one person.
So, the survey last year that claimed four in ten women have been unfaithful, compared to three in ten men, is not to be believed now.
Can we take this type of research seriously? Are we really to believe that a clever bloke – one who is quick-witted, can lie without any qualms and can charm the birds out of the trees and into the nearest bed – is any less a chancer when it comes to playing away from home than someone who struggled to get a GCSE or two?
It might be unfair to pick out one man – the exception to the rule – but few people would accuse Bill Clinton of lacking grey matter, but it didn’t stop his deception – and he lied to the American people about the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinski.
And do we really believe that people tell the truth when it comes to these kinds of social surveys? It’s like those questioners who want to know the number of sexual partners you have had: many believe men either lie because they are embarrassed at the true number – or lie to make themselves sound rather more of a stud muffin than they really are.
Can fidelity really have anything to do with intelligence? As Oscar Wilde said: The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Jayne Howarth
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