We examined between-sex differences and within-sex differences in jealousy in response to a romantic partner’s sexual and emotional infidelity. In addition to replicating established sex differences in jealousy, we investigated a potential trigger for within-sex differences in jealousy. We hypothesized that men will be more distressed by sexual infidelity and women will be more distressed by emotional infidelity and that relationship experience will trigger men and women to respond in evolutionarily predictable ways. We replicated previous research on sex differences in jealousy and demonstrated that relationship experience predicts upset over infidelity, but primarily for men. Relative to men without relationship experience, men with such experience reported greater distress about a partner’s sexual infidelity. Discussion focuses on the relevance of relationship experience to within-sex differences in distress over a partner’s infidelities.
Because of the reproductive costs of a male unknowingly investing in offspring to whom he is not genetically related, men have been hypothesized to be more upset over a partner’s sexual infidelity than her emotional infidelity. Women, on the other hand, suffer greater reproductive costs if they lose paternal investment and, therefore, have been hypothesized to be more upset over a partner’s emotional infidelity than his sexual infidelity (Daly et al., 1982 and Symons, 1979). Buss, Larsen, Westen, and Semmelroth (1992) tested this hypothesis in a study that examined sex differences in jealousy in three distinct ways. First, they used a forced-choice self-report survey that teased apart sexual infidelity from emotional infidelity. Second, they investigated physiological responses to imagined infidelity. Finally, they investigated what triggered the different responses between and within the sexes. They hypothesized and found that both types of infidelity distress both men and women, but that the weight that is given to each type is different for the sexes, with men more affected by sexual infidelity and women more affected by emotional infidelity. The present study was designed to replicate and extend these findings by investigating possible triggers for the sex-differentiated responses within men and women.
Both sexes have a jealousy psychology, but some of the triggers that activate men’s jealousy are different from the triggers that activate women’s jealousy. A man is more attuned to cues by his partner that she is sexually unfaithful, whereas a woman is more attuned to cues by her partner that he may no longer be willing to invest in her exclusively (Schützwohl and Koch, 2004, Shackelford and Buss, 1997 and Shackelford et al., 2002). Thus, a man’s jealousy appears to be more likely to be activated by his partner’s sexual infidelity and a woman’s jealousy appears to be more likely to be activated by her partner’s emotional infidelity.
Much of the research conducted on romantic jealousy has focused on differences between the sexes, with little attention devoted to within-sex differences. Buss et al. (1992) proposed that being in a sexually committed relationship activates the jealousy mechanism, because the direct experience of being in such a relationship contributes to the activation of the different weights associated with the jealousy mechanism. Their results revealed a reliable difference between men who had been in a committed sexual relationship and men that had not (with relationship experience predicting greater upset to sexual infidelity than to emotional infidelity), but no such effect was found for women.
The present research was intended to provide a more detailed test of the general hypothesis that relationship experience augments the differences between men and women in their respective distress over sexual and emotional infidelity. Rather than simply inquiring whether participants have had a romantic relationship, we presented a series of questions concerning participants’ relationship history and current involvement in a relationship. These questions enabled us to test a set of hypotheses regarding the consequences of relationship experience for the distress generated by sexual versus emotional infidelity.
The hypotheses are as follows (stated with reference to men, but equally applicable to women—see below): (1) men who have ever been in a serious, committed romantic relationship (SCRR) will be more distressed by sexual infidelity than men who have never been in a SCRR, (2) men who are currently in a serious, committed romantic relationship (CSCRR) will be more distressed by sexual infidelity than men who are currently in a non-serious dating relationship (CNSDR), (3) men who are CSCRR will be more distressed by sexual infidelity than men who are not currently in a relationship (NCR), (4) men who are CNSDR will be more distressed by sexual infidelity than men who are NCR, and (5) men who are CSSRR or CNSDR will be more distressed by sexual infidelity than men who are NCR. This increased sexual jealousy may be activated because, until he enters into a relationship, a man cannot be cuckolded, so there is little need for sexual jealousy. Once in a relationship, sexual infidelity weighs more heavily, because he is now faced with huge consequences if he is cuckolded.
Relationship experience may affect women in a fundamentally different manner. Therefore, ever experiencing a SCRR, being CSCRR compared to CNSDR, being CSCRR compared to NCR, being CNSDR compared to those NCR, and being CSCRR or CNSDR compared to NCR is expected to activate women’s jealousy mechanism, but with an increase in emotional jealousy relative to sexual jealousy. This is expected because, once she becomes involved in a relationship, a woman is at a greater risk for resource loss and abandonment. We collected self-report data from over 200 participants to test these five hypotheses regarding relationship experience as a predictor of within-sex differences in jealousy.
