Why the powerful may be more likely to cheat: Experts find correlation between self-perception of power and faithfulness

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Being a captain of industry, a politician, or a celebrity won't automatically make you a cheat. But chances of infidelity are significantly higher among the more powerful, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research.

Psychologists from Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, and the US-based University of Rochester conducted a series of experiments and discovered that power dynamics play an important role in how people feel and behave when it comes to being faithful to their spouses or significant others.

Why? Prior research has established that feeling and being perceived as powerful can make people feel more confident and entitled—and likely to act more impulsively. Previous studies have shown that those who possess relatively greater degrees of power have more potential to influence, change, or control another person, or, conversely, to resist another person's efforts to influence them.

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