Relationship experience as a predictor of romantic jealousy

Abstract

We examined between-sex differences and within-sex differences in jealousy in response to a romantic partner’s sexual and emotional infidelity. In addition to replicating established sex differences in jealousy, we investigated a potential trigger for within-sex differences in jealousy. We hypothesized that men will be more distressed by sexual infidelity and women will be more distressed by emotional infidelity and that relationship experience will trigger men and women to respond in evolutionarily predictable ways. We replicated previous research on sex differences in jealousy and demonstrated that relationship experience predicts upset over infidelity, but primarily for men. Relative to men without relationship experience, men with such experience reported greater distress about a partner’s sexual infidelity. Discussion focuses on the relevance of relationship experience to within-sex differences in distress over a partner’s infidelities.