Did John's genes make him cheat on Elizabeth?
Photo by Mike MurphyI've brought up before how genes can affect our behavior. They don't necessarily determine what we do but they can make doing the "right" thing easier or harder. A new study suggests that having a certain version of a certain vasopressin receptor gene makes a man less likely to cheat on his partner.
The gene commonly comes in three different versions -- RS1, RS3, and GT25. Men with GT25 and RS1 reported more infidelity and had unhappier marriages on average than men with RS3. Which version a woman had didn't seem to matter.
Scientists don't know why men with the RS3 version are more faithful but it makes sense that this gene would be involved. It has been implicated in pair bonding in other animals with the best and most comprehensive work having been done on little rodents called voles.
There are many different kinds of voles but we’ll focus on prairie and meadow voles. Prairie voles stick with one female. Meadow voles are a bit more like men in country music songs -- they tend to love them and leave them.
A bunch of wonderful experiments showed that the voles' different behaviors were because they had different versions of a certain vasopressin receptor gene. People don’t have the exact genetic difference that meadow and prairie voles have. But the exact same gene is involved in this new study.