Abstract
Past research has suggested that men are more upset by imagined sexual than emotional infidelity, and women are more upset
by imagined emotional infidelity than sexual infidelity. However, experience with infidelity, methodology, and age and gender
of the sample may help to explain inconsistent results. Two hundred ninety-four English-speaking undergraduate students and
325 non-college adults in a large mid-Atlantic urban area of the U.S. completed forced-choice or continuous-scale anonymous
questionnaires regarding jealousy over a mate’s hypothetical infidelity. Chi-square and MANOVA analyses replicated previous findings of the expected gender difference in all hypothetical forced-choice
scenarios. However, results for those participants who reported experience with actual infidelity demonstrated little support
for the traditional evolutionary model, as there were no gender differences in which aspect of hypothetical infidelity was
reported to be more distressing, and no gender differences at the college level in terms of which aspect of infidelity received
the greatest focus. These findings, extrapolated from both undergraduates and adults and accounting for the impact of actual,
primed memory of experience of infidelity on hypothetical jealousy scenarios, raise important questions about the validity
of hypothetical scenarios of jealousy as proxies for real reactions to actual infidelity. The results of the present study
suggest that the lack of a consistent, replicable gender difference across the lifespan may be explained by two related factors:
age and actual experience with infidelity.
by imagined emotional infidelity than sexual infidelity. However, experience with infidelity, methodology, and age and gender
of the sample may help to explain inconsistent results. Two hundred ninety-four English-speaking undergraduate students and
325 non-college adults in a large mid-Atlantic urban area of the U.S. completed forced-choice or continuous-scale anonymous
questionnaires regarding jealousy over a mate’s hypothetical infidelity. Chi-square and MANOVA analyses replicated previous findings of the expected gender difference in all hypothetical forced-choice
scenarios. However, results for those participants who reported experience with actual infidelity demonstrated little support
for the traditional evolutionary model, as there were no gender differences in which aspect of hypothetical infidelity was
reported to be more distressing, and no gender differences at the college level in terms of which aspect of infidelity received
the greatest focus. These findings, extrapolated from both undergraduates and adults and accounting for the impact of actual,
primed memory of experience of infidelity on hypothetical jealousy scenarios, raise important questions about the validity
of hypothetical scenarios of jealousy as proxies for real reactions to actual infidelity. The results of the present study
suggest that the lack of a consistent, replicable gender difference across the lifespan may be explained by two related factors:
age and actual experience with infidelity.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-13
- DOI 10.1007/s11199-011-0048-8
- Authors
- Colleen M. Varga, Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, 2125 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
- Christina B. Gee, Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, 2125 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
- Geoffrey Munro, Department of Psychology, Towson University, Towson, MD, USA
- Journal Sex Roles
- Online ISSN 1573-2762
- Print ISSN 0360-0025