People who commit sexual infidelity judge other cheaters more harshly that they judge themselves, according to a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

When it comes to relationship conflict, studies have found that perpetrators of conflict tend to display something called the self-serving bias. The self-serving bias describes the tendency for individuals to take credit for their successes and minimize blame for their failures. This means that unfaithful partners tend to downplay their role in the conflict and are more likely to blame external factors than betrayed partners are.

Researchers conducted two different studies to examine the self-serving bias in the context of sexual infidelity. In addition, they wanted to explore whether people with experience as both perpetrators and victims of infidelity would show hypocrisy when asked about these experiences.

The first study involved 325 participants who were instructed to read a hypothetical scenario in which they were either the perpetrator or the victim of sexual infidelity. After reading the text, participants were asked to rate the extent to which the perpetrator, victim or outside circumstances were to blame for the cheating. Not surprisingly, those who read the text as the unfaithful partner placed less blame on perpetrators than those reading the exact same text but as the betrayed partner.

The second study aimed to explore hypocrisy in the context of real experiences of infidelity. The study involved 352 participants who were either perpetrators of infidelity, victims of infidelity, or both. Participants were questioned about their past experiences with cheating and one group in particular produced intriguing results.

Those who had experiences as both perpetrators and victims of infidelity displayed something researchers call “sexual hypocrisy”. When recalling situations when they were the unfaithful partner, they placed more blame on the victim or on situational factors than when they were the ones betrayed. They also downplayed the emotional harm experienced by the betrayed partner when they were the cheaters rather than the victims.

Researchers were also interested in how certain personality traits might influence the self-serving bias. In both studies, participants completed personality scales that measured characteristics associated with narcissism, sexual narcissism, attachment anxiety and psychopathy. Results showed that those scoring high in sexual narcissism and psychopathy showed more evidence of the self-serving bias than those who scored low on these traits.

The findings have important implications for couples hoping to make amends after infidelity. The tendency for the unfaithful partner to externalize blame and downplay the emotional impact of cheating on the betrayed partner would likely get in the way of reconciliation between partners. Couples may need to overcome these biases in order to reconcile, which might be more difficult for those with narcissistic or psychopathic tendencies.

The study, “Are Cheaters Sexual Hypocrites? Sexual Hypocrisy, the Self-Serving Bias, and Personality Style”, was authored by Benjamin Warach, Lawrence Josephs, and Bernard S. Gorman.