Dr. Phil McGraw thinks that you can identify a cheating man by the length of his ring finger.
Having a ring finger that’s longer than your index finger is just one of the traits that he believes is an indicator of a man who’s prone to infidelity.
The daytime host has devoted today’s episode of his talk show to the many ways that it’s possible to identify cheaters — including brain scans and genetic testing.
While appearing on “The Early Show” yesterday, Dr. Phil said that cheating and non-cheating brains have distinct activity patterns. A player’s brain shows a lot of activity everywhere, while a monogamous man’s brain activity is concentrated in the back where the cerebellum is.
“You find these people that have a history of cheating, you compare their brains to normal and you see it’s dramatically different,” he said.
Other high risk factors include the presence of what some scientists call the “infidelity gene” — Allele 334 — and higher-than-normal levels of feel-good Oxytocin and libido-raising testosterone hormones. (Longer ring fingers are a sign of exposure to high levels of testosterone in utero.)
All of this isn’t to say that cheaters should get a free pass just because they were born that way. “You still have the ability to choose not to do these things,” Dr. Phil said.