Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Mind
-
How to Enjoy Your Decision
5/22/13 -
Inside the Mind of a Psychopath
5/14/13
-
The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
Read More »
Studies from around the world have reported that men are more jealous of sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. And women are the opposite—they’re more jealous of emotional cheating than sexual cheating. Experts often lean on an evolutionary cause for this gender difference: Men can never be sure they are the baby-daddy and women are most concerned with securing a genuinely loyal father to care for the children.
Well, authors of a recent study in Psychological Science question the strength of the evolutionary just-so theory—realizing that there are men who find emotional cheating far worse than sexual cheating. The study reports that personality patterns, shaped by one’s relationship history, can have an impact on jealousy.
Over 400 participants took a survey to measure their jealousy type, meaning which troubles them more: sexual or emotional fidelity. Then they completed a test which specifically measures attachment style in relationships (those styles include: secure, fearful, preoccupied and dismissing.)
And they found that 65 percent of those who are autonomous and tend to be dismissive about commitment reported greater stress about sexual cheating than emotional cheating. And 77 percent of those who are more securely attached and committed in relationships found emotional betrayal to be worse than sexual duplicity.
Even within each sex the results were striking. Dismissive women were four times more likely to report greater sexual jealousy than securely committed women. And dismissive men were 50 times more likely to report sexual jealousy than securely committed men.
So the authors warn: sex differences in jealousy are much more nuanced than a evolutionary explanation might imply.
—Christie Nicholson
See what we're tweeting about
10 Comments
Add CommentI don't find this particularly surprising, since either type of cheating (emotional, sexual) rarely exists independently of the other. Are there purely emotional or purely sexual cheaters? If so I think they're few and far between.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo either type of cheating threatens gene inheritance both from a purely biological basis (sexual cheating) and a survival of offspring basis (emotional)
I betcha, during evolutionary "history," that there were tribes/gene pools that worked strongly as a group (one for all and all for one - whether or not they were in "harmony" with the tribe next door... we're thinking group selection here) and others which had looser affiliations where individuals competed amongst themselves more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo - there's a theoretical basis for evolving both patterns.
It is a bit challenging to differentiate emotional and sexual cheating. Some people would find a close friendship where intimate personal details are shared to be emotional cheating ... but that could be the relationship between two hetrosexual friends without any sexual inuendo. There are certainly people out there jealous of their lover's friends or children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPurely sexual cheating is visiting a prostitute or engaging in one-night stands where no names are exchanged. Hardly an emotional act.
But I agree ... in the real world most people are not going to be jealous of friends (and certainly not consider a round of golf with the mates 'cheating'). And if they are they may be jealous that they do not have a simular relationship rather than be jealous because they feel betrayed.
Um so "those who are autonomous and tend to be dismissive about commitment" are worried about sexual cheating? That seems pretty obvious since they're not getting any... people tend to worry about what they don't have. If you're in a relationship and getting sex, you care less about the sex and more that the person stays true to you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd "dismissive" women may have less sexual stress since women tend to be the ones in control when it comes to sexual situations. Men want it, women decides (how often do women approach men? Being approached puts you in more control)
One must also take into account the cultural and ethnic background along with values attached by each society in evaluating this behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is hardly surprising to find individual differences that can be better explained on the basis of personality or developmental history. Evolutionary psychology typically focuses on overall behavior patterns found throughout the species, not on the individual variations. It's quite likely that almost all of the patterns predicted on an evolutionary basis would show more "nuance" at the individual level. In fact evolutionary theory itself would predict precisely that outcome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm at a loss, even after reading the other readers comments I still have very little idea as to what is meant by "emotional cheating". Can any kind soul enlighten me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr Dan March
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease familiarize yourself with models of group selection before attempting to apply them humans - human reproductive and dispersal patterns do not meet the criteria necessary for group selection to be an important evolutionary force.
ramanan50
When you invoke cultural and ethnic background, do you have reason to believe that any specific cultures would differ from others in terms of jealousy in response to emotional/sexual infidelity? Why?
dsunar
I think it's fair to say that evolutionary psychologists typically have focused on species-typical behaviors, but it's not a fair characterization of evolutionary psychology as a theoretical framework to say that it less useful for studying individual differences - more research has simply to been dedicated to studying human universals.
John J Leonard
Emotional cheating refers to non-physical intimacy (as if that adds anything...) Imagine a man's wife going out to dinner with another guy, and then going back to the guy's place to watch a movie and have a drink, but they don't have sex. That would be emotional infidelity...
Anybody have the citation for the article? Haven't found it myself in Psych. Science yet...
I agree with ramanan50 because cultural and religious value do make a difference and when doing these type of research should bring these thing in to an account.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm going to have to go with Lea's comment to the tenth power: Ew10. I also am a little uncomfortable with the "looksism", but don't want to derail this thread with it. At 50 I'm an extremely liberal, healthy, successful, happy and well loved woman who looks more like Meg than the banshees.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissolar collector http://www.ejaisolar.com/
solar water heater http://www.ejaisolar.com/