Men Sporting This Are Reportedly More Likely to Cheat, According to New Study

A new study found that men who wear clothing with large luxury logos embroidered on them are more likely to cheat on their romantic partners. The study was conducted by the University of Michigan and published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin last month.

The surprising generalization has inspired memes but has also caused some people to look at their partner’s fashion choices in a new light. Researchers said that males who wear polo shirts with logos on them were generally “rated higher on mating effort, lower in parental investment,” the study said. They found that the larger the logo, the less invested the men wearing them were in maintaining a committed romantic relationship. The study was led by Dr. Daniel Kruger, Ph.D., an evolutionary psychologist who was interested in finding out if women were more attracted to men who dress flashy. According to The Science Times, Kruger’s team believed this would be the case “because it signals that a man has economic power and the ability to invest in reproduction or their offspring’s future.”

The study referred to brands like U.S. Polo Assn. or Ralph Lauren, and others that print or stitch their logos onto shirts, hats or the pockets of trousers. Surprisingly, the study was able to report that men who wear these clothes generally rate “higher on interest in brief sexual affairs, lower on interest in long-term committed romantic relationships, higher in attractiveness to women for brief sexual affairs, lower in attractiveness to women for long-term committed relationships, and higher in developmental environment unpredictability compared with men owning shirts displaying a smaller logo.”

“Participants recognized the strategic use of luxury display properties across social contexts but did not consistently associate product properties with owners’ physiological characteristics,” the study noted. It also found that men typically chose shirts with smaller logos for formal events, job interviews and intimate parties.

“Rather than being a reliable and honest signal of future paternal investment, displays of luxury goods may sometimes represent investment in mate attraction, which is at the expense of future investment in offspring,” Kruger said in an interview with The Daily Mail. On Twitter, many responders used this opportunity to poke fun at rival sports fans’ jerseys, or at political slogans on t-shirts. Some posted references to TV shows and movies as well.

While these generalizations certainly aren’t universal, they seem to have many social media users double-checking their closets or their boyfriends’ closets.