Why do people commit adultery? Edward Everett Hale, a Centennial Professor In Economics and Freakonomics guest blogger, says that economics may hold the answer.

It’s a term called hyperbolic discounting and it’s used to describe the human tendency to overemphasize current pleasure and pain in comparing actions at different points in time. Economists use it to describe spending, but Hale says it can be used to describe the rationality, or irrationality, of affairs.

He explains that if someone was asked to imagine the decision and outcomes of an affair in the future, they would never choose to have an affair, but their present choice inflates the current pleasure.