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

DISCUSSION

Cognitive appraisals of infidelity appear to be an important element in gaining insight into the elicitation of sexual jealousy. In particular, for both of the significant effects in this study, elevated levels of jealousy (as measured by emotional upset) were accompanied by the participants feeling less responsible for their partner's disloyalty. One way to understand the relationship of responsibility to the experience of emotional upset is that, to the extent that an individual cannot claim a role in a situation, it is likely that he or she will feel insecure or threatened by the events of that situation, thus in part leading to feelings of upset.

With respect to the conditions of infidelity, individuals accepted more responsibility for their partner's infidelity when it was emotional in nature, perhaps demonstrating a belief that their own emotional unavailability led their partner to seek comfort elsewhere. In recognizing a personal role in their partner's actions, emotional involvement by itself may be less upsetting. When a sexual component is added to the dynamics of the infidelity, however, individuals are less willing to take responsibility for their partner's actions. It appears that in violating the sexual exclusivity of the romantic relationship, unfaithful partners force their mates to relinquish any accountability that they might otherwise have felt in the situation.

It should be noted that, in retrospect, the conditions of infidelity may not have been as clear as was intended. Emotional infidelity was assumed to be inferred from the partner spending time and exploring common interests with the third party. It is possible that this assumption was faulty, resulting in a weaker manipulation than was meant. The two conditions containing sexual infidelity also differed in two respects other than was intended by the variable manipulation. The first manner in which they were not consistent was the degree or extent to which the partner had engaged in sexual intercourse with the third party. The condition containing exclusive sexual infidelity suggested that there were repeated engagements in sexual intercourse. The condition containing both sexual and emotional infidelity alludes to what may be interpreted as a single act of intercourse. Second, the sexual infidelity only condition indicated an element of physical attraction, while that containing both sexual and emotional infidelity did not. These methodological inconsistencies, fortunately, did not cause individuals to react differently to the conditions, as there were no significant differences between the two on any of the dependent measures.

Although the weaker of the two effects, the sex difference in this study is especially interesting in that it is not consistent with the evolutionary perspective, the predominant framework from which sexual jealousy has been studied. The tendency of women in the present study to experience more emotional upset over all of the conditions of infidelity and their feelings of less responsibility for their partner's actions may be related to the cultural assumptions that men and women make in romantic relationships. White (1981) has suggested that men and women attribute different motives to the opposite sex for their disloyalty in romantic relationships. Men ascribe women's desire for extramarital involvement as a desire for greater commitment, whereas women more often ascribe a desire for sexual variety as the motive for their partner's involvement with other women. If women are attributing their male partner's actions to the cultural notion that "boys will be boys," the onus is placed on their partner leaving them to experience more emotional upset. The same, however, cannot be said for men. Rather, their negligence in providing the emotional intimacy that their female partners are presumably seeking (White, 1981) compels them to accept some responsibility for the infidelity which may, in turn, be associated with their feeling less upset. This explanation is corroborated by the findings of Berscheid (1983) that jealousy requires an attribution of responsibility to the partner or rival.