One of the oldest accepted notions is that men are more likely to stray than women. But scientists now believe that it is a person's power, rather than gender, that plays the greatest role in infidelity。

A team of researchers conducted an anonymous Internet survey of 1,561 adults. They found that there is a higher risk of unfaithfulness in people of positions of power, no matter the sex。

The respondents varied greatly in levels of power - 58 percent had a non-management function; 22 percent had a management function; 14 percent were in middle-management and six percent were in a top management position。

The researchers measured power by asking participants to indicate how powerful they thought they were. Researchers also measured other variants such as confidence, distance and the perception of risk as it relates to infidelity。

The study revealed two key discoveries to why powerful people cheat. First, there is a strong association between power and confidence, and the amount of confidence a person has is the strongest link between power and unfaithfulness. Second, the researchers found that among powerful people, gender made no difference in past digressions。

And, the study said, we as a society do not hear about more women cheating because there simply aren't as many women in positions of power as their male counterparts。

有個流傳很久的說法，就是男人比女人更容易出軌。但是如今科學家認為，造成不忠的最重要原因是一個人的權力大小，而非性別。

受試者在職權等級方面差別很大——58%的人從事非管理性質(zhì)的工作;22%的人從事管理相關工作;14%的人是中層管理者而6%者屬于單位高層。

研究人員要求受試者回答他們自認為擁有多少權力來測量受試者的職權大小。研究人員還測量了其他可變因素，例如自信程度、距離因素以及風險感受度(最后一項同不忠息息相關)。

該研究揭示出兩個能夠回答為何有權者更易出軌的關鍵發(fā)現(xiàn)。第一，權力和自信聯(lián)系密切，一個人的自信程度是將權力和不忠聯(lián)系起來的最重要一環(huán)。第二，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，職權大的人群中，出軌率在兩個性別中并沒有什么不同。

研究還稱，社會上之所以鮮見女人出軌，只是因為并沒有很多女人和男人一樣居于高位。