The Four Reasons Why People Cheating by the Neuroscience

VIVA – In a relationship, cheating can happen anytime. Both dating or even for married couples. Lately, the issue of cheating has become a trending topic on social media. Someone can cheat because of brain health conditions.

According to the CEO of Stress Management Indonesia Coach, Pris, between having an affair brain health, and a person's mental condition, there is a mutually sustainable relationship.

“A person's mental condition, including cheating, has a close relationship with his brain health. On this world mental health day, we want to provide information on the real reason someone has an affair so that the problem can be solved from the root,” Pris explained.

Here are some reasons someone cheats according to Neuroscience.

1. Addicted Euphoria Love

Neuroscientists have found that after six months to two years, passionate and deep feelings of love and commitment can turn into a decision to separate, or even cheat.

Many couple therapists say cheating happens because people mistake a lack of intensity and euphoria for signs they have broken up.

This lack of euphoria can encourage a person to look for another partner to try to recreate the high intensity of love. For some people, the need to feel a new flow of love keeps them looking for a relationship outside of marriage.

The self-control circuit is a balancing system between the part of the limbic brain that motivates the search for pleasurable activities and the part of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) that makes a person think twice before engaging in risky behavior, such as infidelity.

When the self-control circuit is balanced, adequate impulse control stops a person from cheating. However, when PFC activity is low, an imbalance occurs which causes a person to give in to impulsive desires without thinking about the consequences.

Brain imaging studies show people with low activity in the PFC are more likely to divorce. Stress Management Indonesia has programs such as Brain Health Assessment to determine the condition of a person's brain self-control circuit.

A 2019 study found men with high testosterone levels were more likely to have an affair than men with lower testosterone levels.

Testosterone is involved in mood, motivation, and sexuality. High testosterone levels are associated with lower empathy and higher lust, which can be a recipe for cheating.

Brain imaging studies have found the brain of a loyal person is different from that of a cheater. When someone looks at romantic images such as a couple holding hands or looking into each other's eyes, for example, brain activation differs between the faithful and the unfaithful.

Research shows that loyal people exhibit more reward-related neural activity when viewing romantic images compared to unfaithful people.

Coach Pris also provides tips to prevent infidelity, one of which is that couples should know each other's conditions before marriage.

This is to understand the partner's condition and take appropriate steps to improve the condition. Healthy couples will form healthy children, which will also affect the surrounding environment to be healthier. To achieve a mental revolution in Indonesia, can be started by improving the condition of the smallest unit in society, namely the family.