“Not withhimyou don't!”: Gender and emotional reactions to sexual infidelity during courtship

Abstract

Gender differences in sexual jealousy have been the focus of earlier research; however, potential effects due to gender of the interloper have not been examined. In Study 1, college men and women rated their upset in response to same‐gender versus other‐gender sexual infidelity by a dating partner. Men found male‐female sexual infidelity most upsetting whereas women found male‐male sexual infidelity most upsetting. This gender difference was replicated in Study 2 using a different hypothetical scenario with students from a different university. These men and women also completed measures of religiosity, sex‐love‐marriage association beliefs, erotophobia/erotophilia, eroticization of same‐gender sexual contact, and expressed their degree of agreement with three different attributions regarding the larger meaning of one's dating partner having same‐gender sexual contact. The gender difference in response to the jealousy‐evoking scenario persisted after controlling for these variables. In Study 3, men and women were randomly assigned to one of four experimental vignettes in which gender of the interloper and gender of the person committing sexual infidelity were manipulated. Participants also completed measures of homophobia and gender‐role attitudes. The scenario depicting female‐female sexual infidelity was rated the least likely to arouse jealousy, and this finding was not mediated by respondent gender, homophobia, or gender‐role attitudes. Findings are discussed with regard to possible explanations and directions for future research.

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