People With This Personality Type More Likely To Cheat, According To Research
Here's how to know someone is a cheater.
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock It's tough to spot a liar because they, well, they lie. You don't want to be stuck with one, so how do you weed people who lie and cheat out of the dating pool? You could try snooping on their phone or computer to catch them in a lie, but that takes a lot of energy.
You know what's much simpler? Paying attention to his personality.
People with this personality type are more likely to cheat, according to research.
Researchers from the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany found that the personality trait to look out for is dishonesty or the "Honesty-Humility" factor.
Theories of personality structure imply that individual differences in honesty, morality, and prosociality represent a core dimension of personality: These aspects are subsumed in the Honesty–Humility factor.
The latter is about being fair to others and being willing to stop exploiting others to benefit yourself.
This finding came from an experiment where people completed a personality assessment.
They then had to roll a die and report what it landed on. If it landed on a specific number, they were to be paid €5.00 (the equivalent of $5.59 in US dollars).
Those who scored lowest on Honesty-Humility were also the ones who said they hit the target number about 75 percent of the time — but their chances of actually getting it would be 17 percent.
The researchers found that Honesty–Humility negatively predict self-scored performance.
In another experiment, participants were asked to solve eight anagrams within 15 min, losing part of their pay for each unsolved anagram. Importantly, anagrams were to be solved in the provided order and both the second and seventh anagrams were very difficult (though not impossible) to solve, i.e. very uncommon words.
Participants self-scored their performance and were paid correspondingly. An unrealistically high level of self-scored performance – i.e. exceeding one solved anagram — was considered to be indicative of dishonesty. Results showed a medium-sized negative effect of Honesty–Humility on this performance measure.
Second, the participant's cheating was self-incriminating. Even if participants did take the instructions seriously and realized they had not solved more than one anagram, claiming to have solved one was a lie that was obvious to the experimenter.
So basically they lied a lot to get more money.
It's pretty obvious that all cheaters lie (to their significant others, as well as themselves), so it's no shock that those who lied fit the personality type associated with cheaters.
If you ever witness your significant other lying to benefit themselves in some way, even if it's small, keep that in mind.
He or she may not make a good partner, or even be the person you thought they were.
Nicole Weaver is a senior writer for Showbiz Cheat Sheet whose work has been featured in New York Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more.