A variant in DRD4, the so-called thrill-seeking gene, may make the cheating more appealing for some risky behaviours such infidelity, promiscuity and gambling.

Justin Garcia, the lead researcher for a team at Binghamton University, State University of New York, says some people may be predisposed to want to.

For the study, researchers asked 181 Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY) student volunteers to fill out an anonymous survey based on previous sexual activity. Questions such as how many sex partners have they ever had and if they have ever been unfaithful were posed.

DNA samples were then taken from the participants' cheeks.

Garcia and his team of researchers discovered that individuals with longer alleles -- the part of the gene that controls physical traits such as eye colour -- on the DRD4 were 50 per cent more likely to commit infidelity and have one-night stands.

"People have different impulses," Garcia told CTV News Channel. "We might go skydiving together and land on the ground and I might say 'oh, I'm glad I'm here' and you might say 'let's bring the plane back up, I want to jump again'."

The researcher noted, however, that genes do not entirely dictate behaviour.

"We never want to blame biology. We are never prisoners of our biology," he said. "We've evolved over millions of years to have big brains and those brains are to make decisions."

Garcia's study, published last year in PLoS ONE, has received renewed interest in the past couple of weeks because of the extramarital activities of high-profile elected officials. On Thursday, former U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner announced his resignation after a weeks-long scandal over lewd online exchanges with several women, including a 17-year-old high school student.

"There are a bunch of new studies that have come out looking at the relationship between infidelity and power," said Garcia. And what those studies found is that "both men and women who are professionals, who have powerful positions, they're 30 per cent more likely to have a case of infidelity."