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For Immediate Release July 14, 2004
Contact: Cristi Allen
callen@decisionanalyst.com
Phone: 817-640-6166

Arlington, Texas – More than half of all Americans have been physically attracted to someone else while in a relationship, yet less than one in ten adults have acted on the attraction. Those findings come from the 2004 romance survey compiled by American Consumer Opinion® Online (www.acop.com), a worldwide online panel that pays people for their opinions.

A recent survey of 1,249 men and women, drawn from a balanced sample of the U.S. population, found that the young and the wealthy are the two groups most likely to find others physically attractive during their relationship. Two-thirds (66 percent) of those respondents between 18 and 34 fell into that category, compared to less than half (49 percent) of those over 55. Similarly, 59 percent of those with an income above $100,000 per annum had been attracted to someone other than their partner, against only 44 percent of those with an income of less than $25,000.

Yet being attracted does not necessarily lead to infidelity. Paradoxically, those groups least likely to find nonpartners physically attractive are the most likely to actually cheat. Those who admitted to cheating most were the less-than-$25,000 per year income group (17 percent) and the older age groups (13 percent of those aged between 45 and 54). The overall proportion of respondents who said they had cheated was 10 percent, with a further 31 percent having been tempted. Interestingly, more than twice the proportion of men admitted to cheating compared to women (13 percent against 6 percent), indicating either exaggeration by the men, or a reluctance for the “fairer sex” to admit the truth.

Comparing the study’s findings with those from similar studies conducted internationally among the American Consumer Opinion® Online panels indicates the fidelity or otherwise of Americans is broadly in line with other Western countries such as Canada, the U.K. and France. Only Germany returned significantly different findings. There, a much smaller percentage of respondents had been physically attracted to nonpartners (44 percent), yet more than 13 percent had, in fact, cheated.

Methodology: For its 2004 “Global Romance Study,’’ balanced samples of between 1058 and 1772 participants (per country) were selected from the U.S., Canadian, French, German and U.K. members of American Consumer Opinion® Online, one of the world’s largest Internet consumer opinion sources, with nearly 3.5 million participants. The total survey size was 6,675. This study’s margin of error was plus or minus 3 percent at a 90 percent confidence level.

About Decision Analyst

Decision Analyst, Inc. is a leading marketing research and marketing consulting firm specializing in advertising testing, strategy research, new product development, and advanced modeling for marketing decision optimization. The firm delivers competitive advantage to clients throughout the world in the consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, retail, high technology, medical and pharmaceutical, utilities, and e-commerce industries. Decision Analyst operates American Consumer Opinion® Online, one of the world's largest Internet consumer opinion panels, with more than 3.5 million participants.

For additional information contact:
Cristi Allen
Publicity
Email: callen@decisionanalyst.com
Phone: 1.800.ANALYSIS (262.5974)
Address: 604 Avenue H East
Arlington, TX 76011

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