Does anyone have any statistics on how common cheating really occurs?

[ZayKayWill]

If so I would love to see it.

[salparadise]

Kinsey Institute - Kinsey Report

 

Married males 50 percent, females 26 percent by age 40.

 

This is still considered the best survey in this area, however, we don't know if the numbers have changed over time, and since it's self-report we aren't sure how much societal expectation shaped the responses. Females may tend to underreport more often.

Edited February 1, 2017 by salparadise

[ExpatInItaly]

OP, I very much doubt you are going to find reliable, objective and up-to-date statistics on cheating.

[Jj66]

It's somewhere between 0 and 100%.

[carhill]

OP, while surveys are nice for publishing in research papers and curriculum required projects, in the real world, with billions of people who are all autonomous beings with their own mind, psychology and bias, IMO there will never be any factually accurate statistics on cheating.

 

However, I'll give you my biased opinion. I think, when it comes time to die, while it may not matter at all, everyone has cheated at least once. We may not think we have cheated, we may not remember we have cheated, but we have, even if we've never been married, looking at the cold reality of our lifetime of behaviors, from birth to death, something few if any of us will ever do.

 

This only pertains to interpersonal social interactions, not in general. In general, people lie and cheat whenever it benefits them to the extent that benefit supersedes their boundaries, and then rationalize it away.

 

Example : 'Prove it'

 

There's the challenge of compiling cheating statistics. People are interesting that way.

[Michelle ma Belle]

Why are you asking?

[Weezy1973]

Infidelity Statistics – Statistic Brain

 

This is more recent and taken from Pew Centre research which is generally well respected.

 

57% of men and 54% of women admit to being unfaithful in at least one of their relationships...

 

So, yeah, cheaters are more common than non-cheaters..

[central]

This article was interesting - I do take the results with a grain of salt, as they say. Still ....

 

 

Most people never get caught (especially true of women). Given how many are caught, that gives some idea of how many others are cheating.

 

 

Almost all women who cheat never get caught by their partners.... but a fifth of men DO get found out | Daily Mail Online

 

 

This one is also enlightening:

 

 

https://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/stats-about-infidelity.html

Edited February 1, 2017 by central

[ZayKayWill]

OP, I very much doubt you are going to find reliable, objective and up-to-date statistics on cheating.

 

I figured as much honestly.

[Vinny1951]

That last big survey done, which appeared in Cosmo and in many news media all over the country, showed that 50-60% or women and 70% of men cheat with the women closing the gap each year. This was a few years ago but it sounds about right from my experience with friends and co-workers. I often think that when couples take the vow of fidelity it is with a wink and a nod.

[ZayKayWill]

Why are you asking?

 

I've always just had a general curiosity for things and apparently people seem to have a hard time understanding that.

[Sweetfish]

Kinsey Institute - Kinsey Report

 

Married males 50 percent, females 26 percent by age 40.

 

This is still considered the best survey in this area, however, we don't know if the numbers have changed over time, and since it's self-report we aren't sure how much societal expectation shaped the responses. Females may tend to underreport more often.

 

This has been proven

 

When studies about sexual partners or fidelity use a mixture of face-to-face interviews and anonymous computer questionnaires, men will give the same answers to both, but women will report much higher numbers when the answers are anonymous.

[Clockwork]

The Kinsey report was quite some time ago. Just a hunch, but those numbers have definitely gone up, not down, since then.

[ZayKayWill]

OP, while surveys are nice for publishing in research papers and curriculum required projects, in the real world, with billions of people who are all autonomous beings with their own mind, psychology and bias, IMO there will never be any factually accurate statistics on cheating.

 

However, I'll give you my biased opinion. I think, when it comes time to die, while it may not matter at all, everyone has cheated at least once. We may not think we have cheated, we may not remember we have cheated, but we have, even if we've never been married, looking at the cold reality of our lifetime of behaviors, from birth to death, something few if any of us will ever do.

 

This only pertains to interpersonal social interactions, not in general. In general, people lie and cheat whenever it benefits them to the extent that benefit supersedes their boundaries, and then rationalize it away.

 

Example : 'Prove it'

 

There's the challenge of compiling cheating statistics. People are interesting that way.

 

So wait. You're telling me that you think that everyone has cheated in some point in life? Sorry mate but that's not true...unless I'm reading you wrong?

[JustGettingBy]

The Kinsey report was quite some time ago. Just a hunch, but those numbers have definitely gone up, not down, since then.

 

The number of cheaters, or the number of people who admit it?

 

Or both?

[Clockwork]

The number of cheaters, or the number of people who admit it?

 

Or both?

 

I'd say for sure the number of cheaters would have gone up if anything. The number of people who admit to it, probably is about the same. Cheaters will lie, just like always.

[LilyMila]

This statistics is further complicated by people's definition of cheating. We live in an age where you don't necessarily have to sleep with another person to cheat. Whenever affection, attention, and energy that should have being directed toward a spouse is being directed toward another, that constitute as emotional cheating. My husband never asked me to lunch when he was only several hundred feet from my office, but he had the energy to drive all the way from Maryland to DC to go to dinner with a female he met on the plane. That's cheat in my book even though it didn't turn physical. If you include emotional cheating, that number is probably even higher.