The academic consensus is that one’s number of lifetime partners is a strong predictor of infidelity: “A truism in psychology is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. This is no less true in the realm of sexual behavior. Indeed, one of the strongest predictors of marital infidelity is one’s number of prior sex partners. Deception about past sexual promiscuity would have inflicted greater costs, on average, on men than on women” (source). After interviewing thousands of women, Whisman and Snyder found a 7 to 13% increase in the chance of infidelity per additional partner depending on their mode of interview (source). Cherkas et al. investigated genetic influences on female infidelity and found that infidelity and promiscuity are both under moderate genetic influence and that “nearly half the genes impacting on infidelity also affect number of sexual partners.” (source). Hughes and Gallup determined “promiscuity is in fact a good predictor of infidelity. Indeed, promiscuity among females accounted for almost twice as much variance in infidelity (r² = .45) as it did for males (r² = .25)” (source). Pinto and Arantes found that sexual promiscuity is not only strongly related to sexual infidelity but that it is also strongly related to emotional infidelity (source). Barta and Keene wrote “[i]ndividuals exhibiting sexually permissive attitudes and those who have had a high number of past sexual relationships are more likely to engage in infidelity (Feldman & Cauffman, 1999). In a study of supposedly exclusive dating couples, it was found that individuals exhibiting an ‘unrestricted’ sociosexual orientation (SO) were significantly more likely to pursue extra-pair involvement (Seal, Agostinelli, & Hannett, 1994).” (source). An unrestricted sociosexual (promiscuous) orientation is strongly associated with infidelity due to a general lack of commitment as well as the desire for novel and varied experiences.