14 DAY TRIAL // Golfer Tiger Woods, talk show personality David Letterman, former senator John Edwards and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford have all been involved in highly mediated scandals because of their decision on cheat on their wives. The higher the position of the man in society, the harder his fall and the bigger the interest in his affairs, a new LiveScience piece says, talking a good hard look at what drives a man, especially a high-profile one, to cheat.
As was also the more recent case with Tiger Woods, who lost more than a chip off his squeaky clean reputation in the scandal, the question on everyone’s lips when news breaks in the media is what he could have been thinking to be unfaithful, especially knowing the risks being found out would entail. Psychologists and other experts say that, in most of these cases, these men have such inflated egos and believe themselves to be so utterly in control of everything going on in their life that they hardly realize the magnitude of their actions.
“I’m guessing these things don’t happen at the forefront of their brain. They aren’t things he sits down and calculates out. It’s in the background,” Scott Reynolds, assistant professor of business ethics at the University of Washington in Seattle, says for the aforementioned publication. That is to say, the man in question, a public figure nonetheless, realizes what could happen if he’s found out but said realization is like background noise. And this is where the illusion of control comes in to appease his fears: if his wife finds out about him, he can still make things right.
“Even if their brains did register the infidelities, high-profile philanderers have so much power and control over their lives they likely couldn’t imagine getting caught, scientists say. And with past as their guide (wins on the links for Woods and the Hill for Edwards), even if they did get caught, they could control the fallout and stay on top. Some indiscretions were more surprising than others, with Mr. Family Values – Edwards – coming to mind. The acts are not so surprising for scientists who study this stuff, however. They know that even the most upright, squeaky-clean person can have an extramarital affair, and perhaps they are more likely to do so,” LiveScience says.
Therefore, it’s a combination of not practicing what one preaches with an inflated ego and distorted sense of control, and a touch of hypocrisy that lies at the root of extramarital affairs of high-profile men. Of course, blaming only the men for these things would be ridiculous, psychologists point out for the same publication: one must not forget about “the other” woman that seals the deal (14 of them in Woods’ case, for instance).