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Cheating is one of those things that we treat as a serious character flaw. It’s a horrible thing to do to a partner, and when people are discovered as cheaters, it’s often seen as a choice.
But what if cheating were something that’s actually in our DNA?
A commonly cited study done by Shere Hite, a sex researcher, found that as many as 70 percent of married women and 72 percent of married men had cheated on their spouses.
More recently, it’s been found that those numbers are much smaller, but the fact still remains that people cheat, and they do so frequently. And the reason, it seems, is in our genetic makeup.
It comes from our “happy hormone,” formally known as the dopamine receptors. There’s a long allele variant and a short allele variant, and the difference between cheating habits in the two is noticeable. Around 50 percent of those with a long allele said that they had cheated before, whereas 22 percent of those with a short allele said this. Long allele variants are also more likely to engage in risky behaviors.
Vasopressin is another cheating hormone, and one study found that the hormone influences women’s infidelity, but has no effect on men's. It’s activated when one person is in close contact with another person, and it’s found in lower levels in people who have social development problems.
Of course, it’s not just our DNA. It also depends on how much money both spouses earn. Men who made less money than their female partners were five times as likely to cheat as men who made the same amount as their wives. Of course, this was also true for men who make significantly more.
Whichever factor is at plat, one thing is for certain: the only person who can influence whether or not someone actually acts on their cheating urges is themselves.
