Science offers a handy way to distinguish between faithful and promiscuous¹ types: check the length of their fingers.

科学提供了一个辨别忠诚和花心类型的便捷方法：看看手指的长度。

People with a right ring finger that’s much longer than the index of the same hand are more likely to veer² toward the dissolute, judging from an Oxford³ University study published today in the journal Biology Letters.

根据牛津大学今天在《生物学报》期刊上发表的文章判断，人们同一只手的无名指比食指长的话，就更有可能花心哦。

Finger length is set before birth, influenced by the level of sex hormones⁴ babies are exposed to in the womb. Men and women with longer ring fingers probably soaked up extra testosterone, which is linked with an appetite for more sexual partners, the researchers said.

手指的长度是天生的，婴儿在子宫里的时候就暴露在性激素的影响下。研究者说道，男人和女人的手指比较长，可能是吸收了过多的睾丸素——这与渴望更多性伴侣之间关联紧密。

“There seems to be two types of males and two types of females,” Wlodarski, a researcher in the university’s department of experimental psychology⁵ said. “We observed what appears to be a cluster of males and a cluster of females who are more inclined to ‘stay,’ with a separate cluster of males and females being more inclined to ‘stray,’ when it comes to sexual relationships.”

“男人和女人似乎看似都有两类，”牛津大学实验心理学系的研究员沃达斯基说道。“我们注意到，在两性关系上，好像更倾向于‘安定’的男人和女人都有一群，而另一群的男人和女人更倾向去‘游荡不定’。”

The research used finger measurements from more than 1,300 people, and surveys of almost 600 volunteers in the U.K. and U.S. That doesn’t mean you can blame that steamy affair solely⁶ on hand physiology⁷, or rely on finger length to guarantee a stable marriage. While statistics based on standardized⁸ questionnaires pointed⁹ to a link between the finger length differential and behavior, other factors can mitigate¹⁰ that impact, according to Wlodarski.

研究测量了1300多人的手指长度，并调查了英国和美国的600多位志愿者。不过那并不意味着，手的生理机能就要为不正当关系负全责，或是全依仗手指长度来保障一段稳定的婚姻。根据沃达斯基所说，虽然标准问卷指出了手指长度分差和行为之间的关联，其他因素也能缓和该影响。

“There’s really almost no one that exists who’s purely¹¹ promiscuous or purely monogamous,” he said in a telephone interview. “Everything we are is a combination of both our genetics and our environment. There’s massive room for variation, and that variation will depend on your upbringing, on your early relationship experience, on your development, and on aspects of free will and aspects of making decisions based on your experiences.”

“实际上，几乎不存在完完全全的花花公子，或是仅仅的忠贞不二，”他在电话采访中说道。“我们之所以成为现在的人，归功于基因和环境的双重影响。变化的空间很大，变化会取决于你的教育，你早前的人际关系经历，你的独立性，还有自由意愿方面和根据你的经历做出的决议方面。”