Sex Differences in Jealousy: A ContributionFrom Attachment Theory

摘要

Studies have found that more men than women endorse sexual infidelity as more distressing than emotional infidelity, whereasmore women than men endorse emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. Some evolutionary psychologistshave proposed that this sex difference can be best conceptualized as reflecting evolution-based differences in parental investmentthat produce a need for paternity certainty among men and a need for male investment in offspring among women. Nonetheless,a conspicuous subset of men report emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. Current theorizing explainsbetween-sex differences but not within-sex differences. We hypothesized that attachment-style differences may help to explainboth between- and within-sex differences in jealousy. As hypothesized, dismissing avoidant participants reported more jealousyregarding sexual than emotional infidelity (64.8%), and secure participants, including secure men, reported more jealousyregarding emotional than sexual infidelity (77.3%), x~2(3,N =411)= 45.03,p <.001. A series of sequential logistic regressionanalyses indicated significant moderation of the sex-jealousy relationship by attachment style. Implications of an attachmentperspective are discussed.