Men more likely to say 'I love you' first, researchers find

Men are more likely to be the first to say 'I love you' to their partner, research has found.

American scientists interviewed 171 heterosexual students under 25 and found that young men are three times more likely to declare their feelings than their girlfriends.

Around 64 percent of males admitted they had said 'I love you' first, compared to just 18 percent of women, research at the Pennsylvania State University and published in the Journal of Social Psychology found.

Around 87 percent of those interviewed believed women fell in love first, while three quarters predicted that women would be first to say 'I love you', but questions about their own experiences proved that men took a few weeks to realise they were in love, while women took a few months.

However, the researchers couldn't rule out the possibility that some men had ulterior motives since the same timescale applied to when each respondents of each gender wanted to have sex with their new lover - within weeks for men and months for women.

"Any strategy serving as the means to a sexual end would be beneficial to men, including declarations of love," the report said, according to The Mail On Sunday.

"This shows that women tend to be more cautious about love and the expression thereof than is commonly believed.

"It can be argued that men's falling in love and exclaiming this love first may be explained as a by-product of men equating love with sexual desire."