Sexual and Romantic Jealousy in Heterosexual and Homosexual Adults

Several theorists have claimed that men are innately more upset by a mate's sexual infidelity and women are more upset by a mate's emotional infidelity because the sexes faced different adaptive problems (for men, cuckoldry; for women, losing a mate's resources). The present work exam...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2002-01, Vol.13 (1), p.7-12
Main Author: Harris, Christine R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adultery
Emotional expression
Emotions
Envy
Evolutionary psychology
Female
Female homosexuality
Gender
Gender differences
Heterosexuality
Homosexual relationships
Homosexuality
Humans
Infidelity
Jealousy
Love
Male
Male homosexuality
Men
Psychology
Sexual Behavior - psychology
Sexual behaviour
Sexual orientation
Sexuality
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Several theorists have claimed that men are innately more upset by a mate's sexual infidelity and women are more upset by a mate's emotional infidelity because the sexes faced different adaptive problems (for men, cuckoldry; for women, losing a mate's resources). The present work examined this theory of jealousy as a specific innate module in 196 adult men and women of homosexual and heterosexual orientations. As in previous work, heterosexuals' responses to a forced-choice question about hypothetical infidelity yielded a gender difference. However, no gender differences were found when participants recalled personal experiences with a mate's actual infidelity. Men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, on average focused more on a mate 's emotional infidelity than on a mate's sexual infidelity. Responses to hypothetical infidelity were uncorrelated with reactions to actual infidelity. This finding casts doubt on the validity of the hypothetical measures used in previous research.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.00402