Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Secondary effects: Extra-marital edition

Longtime TPSer Thomas Johnson sends along this effect of the economic slowdown. The piece mentions that any study concerning extra-marital affairs should be taken with "a large grain of salt," but by studying only those who engage in the activity, the researchers avoid a lot of potential problems.

I recently brought up the issue of positive outcomes being overlooked in the midst of our economic downturn. Is there a silver lining to this one? If you view affairs on a continuous span, less cheating is certainly good (the study mentions less gifts and lavish treatment-- I don't think it's a stretch to say there's "less cheating" occurring, however you want to quantify that). If you see it as discrete, the change should mean nothing-- "less cheating" is still cheating, and that's what matters.

By the way, if you can read the comments by the gender studies professor in the article without breaking into uncontrollable laughter, you're a stronger person than I am.

No comments: