Jealousy in Sexual and Emotional Infidelity: An Alternative to the Evolutionary Explanation - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Sex Research, May, 2000 by Dawn K. Nannini, Lawrence S. Meyers

A jealousy-evoking scenario appeared on the third page. Participants were asked to imagine their partner in one of the three types of scenarios described above. Individuals who were not currently involved in a romantic relationship were asked to think of a past relationship or to try to imagine how they would feel with respect to the situation if they were involved in a romantic relationship. After reading the scenario, the students indicated the degree of emotional upset that they were likely to experience using a 7-point summative response scale varying from 1 (Very little) to 7 (Very much).

To identify participants' cognitive interpretation of the jealousy-evoking event, Smith and Ellsworth's (1985) six cognitive dimensions of emotion were then measured using their eighteen 11-point summative response scales, all of which followed the measure of emotional upset. Two of the six questions that made up the dimension of pleasantness and both of the questions that made up the attentional activity dimension were rated on bipolar scales ranging from 1 (Unpleasant, Divert attention)to 11 (Pleasant, Devote attention). The remaining questions were rated on monopolar scales ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 11 (Extremely). The wording of Smith and Ellsworth's questions was modified from past tense to a subjective assessment. For example, instead of asking, "How pleasant or unpleasant was it to be in this situation" participants were asked, "How pleasant or unpleasant would this situation be."

Respondents completed the surveys either in small mixed-gender groups of 5 to 10 people or in a mixed-gender classroom setting of 20 to 30 people. The booklets took approximately 15 min. to complete.

RESULTS

Of the 322 participants in this study, 21 individuals reported a homo- or bisexual orientation. For the sake of consistency with the assumptions of past jealousy research, these individuals' responses were not included in the overall analyses.

Preliminary analyses of variance indicated that the three story versions were comparable with respect to the dependent measures of sexual jealousy and the six cognitive dimensions of emotion, making the findings generalizible beyond a single scenario. It was also determined that participants pooled from different college campuses did not differ with respect to the dependent measures.

In preparation for the primary analysis, the continuous measure of jealousy and its triggers was dichotomized using a median split (median = 4.00). A median split was used given the nearly perfect normal distribution of the sample across the measure. Individuals below the median were characterized as having lower jealous tendencies in the context of romantic relationships, while those above the split were considered to have higher jealous tendencies.

The primary analysis, a 3 x 2 x 2 independent groups design, was used to investigate the joint effects of the nature of the jealousy-evoking event (sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, or both sexual and emotional infidelity), participants' sex, and the level of sexual jealousy on individuals' emotional response of jealousy (degree of emotional upset) and on their cognitive appraisal of the situation using these latter seven measures as dependent variables. The multivariate analysis of variance, using the Wilks' criterion, yielded significance for only two main effects--the gender of the participant, F(7, 273) = 2.14, p [is less than] .05, and the nature of the infidelity scenario, F(14, 546) = 16.42, p [is less than] .05.