Infidelity Scenarios Research Articles

Fragile Egos and Broken Hearts: Narcissistic and Borderline Personality Traits Predict Reactions to Potential Infidelity

We examined the connections that narcissistic and borderline personality traits had with hypothetical responses to romantic infidelity in a sample of Israeli community members (N = 997). We distinguished between four forms of narcissism: extraverted narcissism (characterized by assertive self-enhancement), antagonistic narcissism (characterized by defensiveness and hostility), neurotic narcissism (characterized by emotional distress), and communal narcissism (characterized by attempts to emphasize superiority over others by exaggerating communal characteristics such as being extraordinarily helpful). We also measured levels of borderline personality traits. Results showed that neurotic narcissism was strongly associated with heightened negative emotional responses, particularly in high-threat infidelity scenarios, aligning with predictions regarding emotional volatility. Antagonistic and communal narcissism showed detrimental effects on relationship evaluations primarily under low-threat conditions, indicating distinct patterns of defensiveness and vulnerability. Extraverted narcissism showed no significant association with emotional responses. Borderline traits were linked to intense emotional reactions across conditions, emphasizing their broad impact on perceived relational threats. These findings suggest that while some personality traits exacerbate reactions in less severe conditions, infidelity trauma can overwhelm these differences, underscoring the potential need for personalized therapeutic approaches. Discussion is focused on the implications for understanding personality traits in relational contexts and future research directions exploring varied threat manipulations.

An Experimental Test of Jealousy's Evolved Function: Imagined Partner Infidelity Induces Jealousy, Which Predicts Positive Attitude Towards Mate Retention.

Jealousy may have evolved to motivate adaptive compensatory behavior in response to threats to a valued relationship. This suggests that jealousy follows a temporal sequence: A perceived relational threat induces state feelings of jealousy which in turn motivates compensatory behavior, such as mate retention effort. Yet to date, tests of this mediation model have been limited to cross-sectional data. This study is the first to experimentally test this theoretical model. Men and women (N = 222) who were currently in committed romantic relationships were primed with an imagined partner infidelity (versus control) scenario. Participants then completed measures of state jealousy and intended mate retention behavior. Results found that those primed with the infidelity threat scenario experienced an increase in state jealousy, which in turn predicted more intended benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate retention. Findings suggest that jealousy mediated the relationship between infidelity threat and intended mate retention behavior, supporting the evolutionary account of state jealousy.

Factors that Influence People’s Beliefs About Men’s and Women’s Jealousy Responses

This study examines what beliefs people hold about other men’s and women’s reaction to infidelity and how related these beliefs are to one’s own jealousy response and to various socio-cultural influences. This novel approach was examined in a Facebook snowball sample (N = 1213) who responded to three infidelity scenarios regarding what aspect of infidelity (emotional or sexual) they believed would make men and women more jealous and then what aspect would make themselves more jealous. The results suggest that both men and women believed men would be more upset by the sexual aspect of infidelity and that women would be more upset by the emotional aspect (i.e., falling in love). Own jealousy responses in men and women were strongly associated with beliefs about same-sex responses to infidelity and showed moderate association with beliefs about opposite-sex responses. Self-reported perceptions of cues to infidelity and knowledge from various sources about what (1) may be cues to infidelity and (2) may be typical reactions to infidelity were unrelated to beliefs about men’s and women’s jealousy responses and to own jealousy responses. We discuss whether beliefs about men’s and women’s jealousy responses may be culturally transmitted or more likely involve a dual model consisting of (a) reflection of own jealousy responses with (b) some cross-sex insights into jealousy reactions in men and women. The findings suggest that there may be evolved psychological adaptations for jealousy beliefs that extend to others of same and opposite sex.

Women's Reaction to Opposite- and Same-Sex Infidelity in Three Cultures : Data from Canada, Samoa, and the Istmo Zapotec.

Previous research indicates that Euro-American women are more upset by imagining their male partners committing homosexual infidelities than heterosexual ones. The present studies sought to replicate these findings and extend them to two non-Western cultures wherein masculine men frequently engage in sexual interactions with feminine third-gender males. Across six studies in three cultural locales (Canada, Samoa, and the Istmo Zapotec), women were asked to rate their degree of upset when imagining that their partner committed infidelity that was heterosexual in nature, as well as infidelity that was homosexual. In two Canadian undergraduate samples, women reported greater upset at imagining partner infidelity with a female, whereas a community sample of middle-aged women reported equal upset across infidelity types. Samoan women reported substantially less upset at the thought of partner infidelity with a third-gender male (fa'afafine) than with a female. Istmo Zapotec women reported equal upset toward infidelity with a female or a third-gender male (muxe), whereas a second Zapotec sample reported slightly greater upset at the thought of infidelity with a muxe. Results illustrate how cultural contexts moderate the degree to which same-sex infidelity scenarios are upsetting to women.

Investigating the emergence of sex differences in jealousy responses in a large community sample from an evolutionary perspective

Sex differences in jealousy responses to sexual and emotional infidelity are robust in samples of heterosexual adults, especially in more gender egalitarian nations. However, investigations of when and how these differences develop have been scant. We applied two forced choice infidelity scenarios in a large community sample of high school students (age 16–19, N = 1266). In line with previous findings on adults using the forced choice paradigm, adolescent males found the sexual aspect of imagined infidelity more distressing than adolescent females did. Nevertheless, there was no effect of age on the jealousy responses, and age did not moderate the sex difference. There were neither any effects of three covariates (having had first sexual intercourse, being in a committed romantic relationship, and sociosexuality), neither as markers of pubertal maturation nor as psychosocial environmental stimuli. Future research needs to investigate even younger samples in order to specify at what age the sex difference in jealousy responses emerges.

Sexual Transgressions in Couples: The Influence of Dependence and Commitment on their Perception and Handling.

Transgressions occur frequently in romantic relationships, and how they are perceived is influenced by the type of transgression that occurred. By means of an experimental study of 399 participants (75.9% women and 24.1% men) aged 18 to 64 years old (Mage = 31.20, SD = 10.48), we examined the relationship between the type of sexual transgression (infidelity versus coercion), and perceived severity, strategies individuals would use in response to the transgression, and the probability they would leave the relationship, as well as levels of dependence and commitment. Results revealed higher perceived severity (p < .001, η2p = .24) and probability of leaving the relationship (p < .001, η2p = .39) in the infidelity scenario (versus coercion). Meanwhile, women (compared to men) rated sexual transgressions as more severe (p < .001, η2p = .04) and reported a higher probability of leaving the relationship (p < .001, η2p = .03), as well as a higher use of active conflict resolution strategies (exit, p = .048, η2p = .01, and voice, p < .001, η2p = .06) and lower use of passive strategies (loyalty, p < .001, η2p = .08). Finally, high levels of commitment and dependence predicted lower perceived severity (commitment, p < .001, 95% CI [-.72, -.20]; dependence, p < .001, 95% CI [-1.73, -.85]) and lower probability of leaving the relationship (commitment, p = .048, 95% CI [-.55, -.01]; dependence, p < .001, 95% CI [-1.66, -.73]) in coercion (versus infidelity) transgressions. These results highlight the normalization of sexual coercion in romantic relationships, which is not viewed as negatively as infidelity, and that commitment and dependence contribute to minimizing the negative impressions of it.

Breakup Likelihood Following Hypothetical Sexual or Emotional Infidelity: Perceived Threat, Blame, and Forgiveness

Abstract Infidelity represents a major threat to relationships, often resulting in dissolution of couples. The process from infidelity to potential breakup was studied in 92 couples using questionnaires concerning hypothetical scenarios of sexual and emotional infidelity. Structural equation model analyses using couple data for both infidelity types suggest that the level of perceived threat to the relationship was the main predictor of likelihood of breakup for men and women. Following each type of imagined infidelity, this effect was partly mediated by forgiveness. For emotional infidelity, level of blame was associated with forgiveness and breakup. The effect of blame on breakup was fully mediated by keeping less distance. The mechanisms involved in these processes were highly similar for women and men.

What feeds the green-eyed monster: sociodemographic and sociosexual determinants of jealousy

Although studies consistently show gender differences in emotional vs. sexual jealousy, a substantial part of variance in jealousy is left unexplained. Here, we present two studies with aim to explore other correlates of jealousy, aside from gender. In the first online study (n = 2970), we found that participants who reported being more upset by the emotional infidelity scenario were older and more educated and had a higher income than those who reported being more upset by the sexual infidelity scenario. Those who expressed greater sexual jealousy gave higher ratings of importance of potential partner's mate value. Heterosexual women were more likely to report emotional jealousy than non-heterosexual women. Among men, sexual orientation did not predict type of jealousy. As the role of reproductive status was largely neglected in previous research, in the second study, we used a continuous measure to explore jealousy as a function of age (reproductive vs. post-reproductive; n = 199). We found that the older participants were less jealous overall, and that the previously reported gender differences disappeared in the post-reproductive group. These results provide further support for the notion that jealousy is a context-specific, adaptive response, which diminishes in both intensity and specificity as the threat that it was designed for wanes.

Reactions to and Forgiveness of Infidelity: Exploring Severity, Length of Relationship, Sex, and Previous Experience Effects

Infidelity, actual or suspected, can trigger strong emotional reactions, such as jealousy, which could lead to the dissolution of the relationship. These reactions were predicted to vary with the severity of the infidelity, with the sex of the participant, with previous experience with unfaithful partners, and with the length of the relationship. We employed a sample of 447 Greek-speaking participants who were asked to indicate their reactions in different scenarios of infidelity. We found that more severe acts of infidelity were associated with higher emotional upset and jealousy and lower probability of forgiveness. Moreover, women indicated stronger emotional upset and jealousy than men, but they were more likely to forgive their partners. Furthermore, participants indicated more emotional upset and jealousy if they were in a long-term than in an early-stage relationship. Finally, participants who were older and who had experienced infidelity from their previous partners were more likely to forgive their partners’ infidelity than participants who were younger and who did not have such experience. Our results indicated that several factors determined the severityof the reactions to infidelity.

Romantic Jealousy: A Test of Social Cognitive and Evolutionary Models in A Population-Representative Sample of Adults

Whereas sexually dimorphic evolutionary models argue for clear sex differences in responses to jealousy-evoking scenarios, social cognitive models emphasize the importance of other factors. This paper explores variables associated with responses to a commonly-used jealousy-evoking scenario in a population-representative sample. Data from 8,386 Australian men and women aged 16–69 were weighted to match the population. The results provided some support for evolutionary models among heterosexual respondents, but findings contrary to evolutionary models were found among non-heterosexual respondents. Support for social cognitive models was provided by the identification of six variables that had significant independent multivariate associations with jealousy: sex, age, education, lifetime number of partners, relationship status, and attitudes toward infidelity. The results suggest that although men and women may tend to respond differently to sexual or emotional infidelity scenarios, the anticipated experience of jealousy in each context is strongly influenced by biographical and cultural factors.

Cuplul și avatarurile lui în proza scurtă a lui Gib Mihăescu. Erotismul - o manieră frustă de revelare a instinctului

Eroticism is a central theme embedded in the thinking, action and metamorphosis of the characters, it is the engine that brings cohesion into the unity of being, but it is also the destructive force that grinds and erodes the interiors of the characters or couples through jealousy, mistrust, negativity, pride and much more which converge to an individual's inability to rise from the fetal scenario network. In the relationship between the characters, love unfolds like in parallel mirrors, each reflects the other, a continuous check of the fidelity of the other marks the male model and motivates its choices, while the woman tends to release and confirms the infidelity scenarios just under the pressure of suspicion. Gib Mihăescu's couples do not contextualize in terms of compatibility / incompatibility, they are subject to the imperative of the conjuncture, they can not overcome the mixture of hallucinating hypotheses and erroneous conclusions. The world in which the character builds up leads to anxiety, installs it in the subconscious, and vices the perception of events. Behavioral deviations culminate in murder, as an obsessive solution to the torrent of acts that invade the character's consciousness, under the false impression of lucidity, with a discernment deeply affected by repression, isolation, and shifting failure to the other.

704 Infidelity, impulsivity, attachment and distorted cognitions

The study explores the most common reasons for infidelity. Do these motivations vary according to the attachment style? Is there a link between infidelity and a dysfunctional subtype of impulsivity? Are there some distorted cognitions that can be associated with increased infidelity? The final database included 316 valid online answers. Infidelity was evaluated by rating: 11 specific reasons, 3 infidelity scenarios, 10 quotes about monogamy. Dickman Impulsivity Inventory was used for evaluating dysfunctional impulsivity level. Bartholomew-Horowitz scale was used for the attachment style. Dysfunctional cognitions were expressed in 13 true-false statements. Rusbult Investment Model Scale was used to explore the link between couple stability and relationship investment. 45% of men and 26% of women admit they committed an infidelity while in an exclusive relationship lasting longer than 6 months. Reasons for infidelity were grouped under 4 main categories: A) Erotic Impulse B) Feeling ‘unloved’ or perceiving that ‘the right partner’ is missing C) Communication, validation & mutual respect deficiencies D) Revenge after a conflict or following partner’s infidelity. For women Reason C) was most common. For men reason A). Still there are significant variations with age. For example 67% of men under 30, mention reason B) as infidelity base. Infidelity does not seem to obviously linked with dysfunctional impulsivity score. Still some specific impulsivity characteristics were less frequent in loyal partners. Unsecure attachment style was present in 33% of loyal partners, versus 46% of people that were not loyal. Five distorted cognitions were more frequent in people that decided to be unfaithful. Loyal partners rated infidelity scenarios more frequently as clearly inappropriate. The link between couple stability and global relationship investment was reconfirmed.

Modeling the interplay between narcissism, relational motives, and jealousy-induced responses to infidelity threat

Threat-based accounts of narcissism postulate enhanced worrying and negative emotion following threat. The present study examined whether the psychological process by which people experience and respond to jealousy-inducing threats varies according to their narcissism subtype. Participants completed measures of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, simulated sexual and emotional infidelity scenarios, and reported their anticipated (a) motives (power/control, relational security, self-esteem compensation, uncertainty minimization) and (b) jealousy responses (worrying, negative emotions, and behavioral tactics). Path modeling conditionally supported threat-based accounts for the vulnerable subtype but not for the grandiose subtype. Grandiose narcissism (marginally) inversely related to a composite of worrying and negative emotion but (directly) positively related to power/control motives and, in turn, attacking/restricting tactics. Effects of vulnerable narcissism on jealousy outcomes depended on infidelity type. Vis-à-vis emotional infidelity, vulnerable narcissism positively related to worrying and negative emotion and, in turn, related to heightened pursuit of all motives, some of which uniquely predicted heightened attacking/restricting tactics, suppressed attacking/restricting tactics, and heightened enhancing tactics. Vis-à-vis sexual infidelity, effects of vulnerable narcissism mimicked those of grandiose narcissism. In jealousy contexts, extant threat-based accounts of narcissism appear inadequate for explaining the grandiose subtype and evidently bounded for explaining the vulnerable subtype.

Jealousy: Evidence of strong sex differences using both forced choice and continuous measure paradigms

Despite some controversy about sex differences in jealousy, data largely support that sex differences studied with the forced choice (FC) paradigm are robust: Men, relative to women, report greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity than in response to emotional infidelity. Corresponding sex differences for continuous measures of jealousy typically have been less robust in the literature. A large sample of Norwegian students (N=1074) randomly responded to either FC or continuous measure questionnaires covering four infidelity scenarios. Large, comparable, theoretically-predicted sex differences were evident for both FC and continuous measures. Relationship status, infidelity experiences, and question order manipulation (activation) did not consistently influence the sex differences for either measure, nor did individual differences in sociosexual orientation or relationship commitment. These large sex differences are especially noteworthy as they emerge from a highly egalitarian nation with high paternal investment expectancy, and because they contradict social role theories that predict a diminution of psychological sex differences as gender economic equality increases.

Sex Differences in Jealousy Are Not Explained by Attachment Style in Men and Women From Chile

Romantic jealousy is a sexually-differentiated emotion designed to secure reproductive liaisons. However, some suggest that sexual differences observed in the kind of infidelity that triggers jealousy cross-culturally could be only an artifact of attachment, shaping the masculine mind to develop a dismissing/avoidant attachment style, while the feminine attachment style is more likely to be anxious. This assumption was tested on a sample of 88 men and 170 women from Chile. The kind of infidelity that was more distressing was compared by sex and attachment style. As expected, results showed that men feel more jealousy distress by sexual infidelity scenario, while women by emotional infidelity scenario. However, Logistic Regressions did not support the proposition that attachment style may underlie sex differences in jealousy, because sex was the only significant predictors of the kind of jealousy that was more distressing. The discussion addresses the consistency of the evolved jealousy mechanism as plastic, but opened to specific contextual inputs other than attachment style.

Height and jealousy over partner’s ex and a new rival among coupled men and women

Recent studies suggest that body height has an effect on the intensity of jealousy among men and women. Since short men and both short and tall women are regarded as less attractive, they could be at greater risk of being cheated by their partners and therefore more jealous. Numerous studies have documented sex differences in jealousy about a partner’s sexual and emotional infidelity with a person of the opposite sex. However, the partner’s ex as a rival has been neglected in the literature. Therefore, in this study the relationships between height and jealousy about two types of infidelity among 112 heterosexual men and 314 women were investigated. Infidelity scenarios included two types of rival: new rival and partner’s ex. As expected on the basis of prior studies, men were more jealous of sexual infidelity and women of emotional infidelity. Both sexes reported greater jealousy over a new rival than over partner’s ex. Among men, there were no relationships between height and jealousy, while among women...

A Reconsideration of Sex Differences in Response to Sexual and Emotional Infidelity

Previous studies have found that males are more upset over sexual infidelity than females whereas females are more upset over emotional infidelity than males. We hypothesized that such sex differences are explained by explicit sexual imagery by males. The hypothesis was tested in a laboratory using vivid infidelity scenarios and photographs to induce detailed and sexually oriented imagery of a partner's infidelity. In the main experiment, participants included 64 males and 64 females who were currently in committed relationships. The results showed that participants became more upset when they imagined sexual infidelity vividly and realistically than when they did not and there were no significant sex differences in jealousy found when sexual infidelity was imagined in this matter. Overall, our findings suggested that the sex differences in jealousy resulted from males' tendency to imagine sexual infidelity more vividly than females.

Predictors of Violent Behaviours in Young Adults Dating Relationships

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of dating violence and jealousy among university students. The role of situational and background factors of risk in explaining violent behaviour was examined. The study included 33 men and 89 women participants, from 20 to 24 years of age, from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Mostar. For the assessment of dating violence, The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) Partner-to-Partner was used. Males and females estimated the intensity of their jealousy in hypothetical situations presenting scenarios of emotional and sexual infidelity. The results of the analyses of the total sample showed that boys and girls differ significantly with respect to the frequency of committing and exposure to violent behaviour in a dating relationship. Men were more often the perpetrators of sexual abuse and threatening behaviour in relation to women. At the same time they were more often exposed to various forms of examined abuse in comparison to women. No differences in the intensity of jealousy between men and women were found. However, a regression analysis showed that jealousy, as a contextual variable, and earlier violent behaviour, as well as a situational variable, is a significant predictor of the exposure and perpetration of dating violence. The results of this study should be taken into account in the development and implementation of programmes for the prevention of violent behaviour in youth adults dating relationships.

Examination of sex differences in the responses to heterosexual and homosexual infidelity

Objective: The goal of the study was to investigate the role of heterosexual and homosexual infidelity scenarios by two infidelity types (sexual versus emotional) on emotional responses (anger, disgust, surprise, sad, and jealousy) of male and female participants. Methods: A total of 881 participants (449 males and 432 females) were assigned to one of two infidelity conditions formed by two scenarios as heterosexual and homosexual infidelity, and they were asked to indicate which infidelity type would make them more distressed, sexual or emotional. Also the participants were required to choose their predominant emotion that they would have felt by the type of infidelity they found more distressing. The data were analyzed by exploratory multi-way frequency analysis that allows examining the multi-way interactions among categorical variables of interest. By employing the analysis, a hierarchical log-linear model of infidelity driven responses for four categorical variables was produced. Results: Although, the results generally were consistent with the infidelity literature, additionally the present data indicated a sex difference in the responses to the scenario types as a function of whether the act of infidelity results in a progeny. Discussion: The results were discussed in the framework of the emotional responses which were counted in the present study along with jealousy, in terms of their motivational effects on behavioral outputs of type of infidelity faced.

Sex Differences in Attitudes toward Partner Infidelity

Sex differences in reactions to partner infidelity have often been studied by comparing emotional reactions to scenarios of sexual versus emotional infidelity. Men, relative to women, tend to react with more distress to partner sexual infidelity than to emotional infidelity. Evolutionary theorists interpret this difference as evidence of sexually dimorphic selection pressures. In contrast, focusing only on the simple effects within each sex, social-cognitive theorists suggest that men and women do not differ in their reactions to partner infidelity. As evidenced by recent rival meta-analytic reports, these diverging perspectives remain largely unresolved and contentious. The present study was designed to take a new approach by measuring attitudes toward partner infidelity. Results were consistent with the evolutionary perspective: Men, to a significantly larger degree than women, evaluated partner sexual infidelity more negatively than emotional infidelity.