When people are caught cheating, they often insist that they couldn’t help themselves.
And now, strangely enough, it turns out that they may be correct…
According to new research, which has been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, it has been revealed that cheating on your other half could all be down to your pesky hormones.
To test the theory, scientists had a group of people take a maths test.
They told that the more answers that they got correct, the more money they would receive - and they were asked to mark their own papers.
Those who cheated on the results were shown to have higher levels of testosterone and cortisol (the stress hormone).
Explaining their results, Dr Robert Josephs from the University of Texas at Austin said: “Elevated testosterone decreases the fear of punishment while increasing sensitivity to reward.
“Elevated cortisol is linked to an uncomfortable state of chronic stress that can be extremely debilitating...
“Testosterone furnishes the courage to cheat, and elevated cortisol provides a reason to cheat.”
So there we have it; if you have higher levels of testosterone, you’re far more likely to cheat than those who do not.