"That's using science to justify your bad behavior."
• Gender Studies
Shankar Vedantam in the Washington Post
."This study provides the largest and most comprehensive test yet conducted on whether the sexes differ in the desire for sexual variety," wrote lead researcher David P. Schmitt, an evolutionary psychologist at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. "The results are strong and conclusive -- the sexes differ, and these differences appear to be universal." ...
But she also found that women's scores changed depending on how confident they were of remaining anonymous. In the study, both men and women had been told to hand their questionnaires to a researcher. But when women were told to deposit their answers in a locked box supervised by a researcher, their average score jumped to 1.53. And when the women took the test alone in a locked room and then deposited their answers in a locked box -- ensuring privacy and anonymity -- their score shot up further, to 2.04. The men's answers did not change significantly, indicating they were less concerned about their opinions being discovered.