Selfless sex

Do you know someone who is completely selfish? Does it burn you up that that person can be so self-centred and lacking in concern for the welfare of others? If someone’s selfishness is annoying you then you may find solace in a new study showing that those selfish people get less sex.

For the new study, researchers interviewed subjects about their relationships and also their tendency towards helping others.

In the first study, it was found that subjects who scored higher on self-reported altruism also reported they were more desirable to the opposite sex, as well as reporting having more sex partners, more casual sex partners and having sex more often within relationships.

In a second study, subjects who were willing to donate potential monetary winnings reported having more lifetime sex partners, more casual sex partners and more sex partners over the past year. Men who were willing to donate also reported having more lifetime dating partners. Furthermore, these patterns persisted, even when controlling for narcissism, Big Five personality traits and socially desirable responding.

All in all it seems that altruists, selfless people, … have more sex and more sexual partners in a lifetime.

All in all it seems that altruists, selfless people, have higher mating success than non-altruists … in other words, they have more sex and more sexual partners in a lifetime. This was particularly true for men but also true for women to a lesser extent. This fits with other research showing that, if all else is equal, men and women are more attracted to altruistic people.

The catch of course is that if you start being selfless just so you can have more sex then that’s not really being too selfless is it … in fact, it’s kind of selfishly the opposite. So perhaps you had just better forget you read this and go ahead being your altruistic self and let the rest take care of itself.

In the end, though, it seems to be true … you get when you give.

Source: British Journal of Psychology