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Psychology of Women Quarterly
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DOI: 10.1177/0361684311414537
2012 36: 25 originally published online 23 November 2011Psychology of Women Quarterly Christopher J. Carpenter
Are More Similar than Different
Meta-Analyses of Sex Differences in Responses to Sexual Versus Emotional Infidelity : Men and Women
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Research Articles
Meta-Analyses of Sex Differences in
Responses to Sexual Versus Emotional
Infidelity: Men and Women Are More
Similar than Different
Christopher J. Carpenter
1
Abstract
From 54 articles, 172 effect sizes were meta-analyzed to determine whether men and women are differentially distressed by
emotional versus sexual infidelity. Predictions were derived and tested from an evolutionary psychology (EP) perspective, a
social–cognitive perspective, and the double-shot perspective. The data were not consistent with the EP predictions because
men tended to respond in the predicted manner in only the U.S. student samples, whereas the rest of the data were largely
consistent with the social–cognitive theory. Specifically, both sexes tended to be more upset by emotional than sexual infide-
lity when forced to choose which type of infidelity was more distressing. Both sexes indicated that sexual infidelity was more
distressing than emotional when asked to rate their level of distress separately for each using continuous measures. The les-
bian and gay samples were mostly consistent with the double-shot hypothesis because they tended to respond based on
stereotyping grounded in the sex of their partner, paralleling heterosexuals in this regard. Analysis of the scenarios designed
to test the double-shot hypothesis found somewhat smaller effects when the possibility of both types of infidelity was ruled
out. These findings suggest that professionals seeking to address problems associated with jealousy in romantic relationships
would profit from avoiding sex-linked assumptions about which aspect of infidelity is likely to be more upsetting.
Keywords
infidelity, theory of evolution, social cognition, social perception, sexual attitudes, sexual orientation, sexual partners, human
sex differences
A controversy has developed in the romantic jealousy litera-
ture concerning sex differences in response to different types
of infidelity (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992;
Harris, 2003a; Sagarin, 2005). Sexual infidelity occurs in
situations such that one partner has sexual relations outside
her or his primary romantic relationship. Emotional infidelity
occurs when one partner develops an intense emotional
attachment outside her or his primary romantic relationship.
Some evolutionary psychologists (Buss et al., 1992) have
argued that men are likely to be more upset if they discover
their partner has engaged in sexual infidelity than if they dis-
cover their partner has engaged in emotional. They also
argued that women are likely to be more upset if they dis-
cover that their partner has engaged in emotional infidelity
than sexual. Other researchers working from a social–cogni-
tive perspective have argued that such sex differences do not
exist (Harris, 2003a) or that they can be explained by prevail-
ing stereotypes about the co-occurrence of the two types of
infidelity at once (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996).
Resolving this issue is of importance to social scientists
for several reasons. First, Cano and O’Leary (1997) argued
that jealousy is an important emotion to address in couple’s
therapy. The different reactions that men and women have
to jealousy based on different types of infidelity can have
an important impact on how therapists should seek to address
jealousy in their sessions. Furthermore, this issue has become
an important area of controversy regarding whether or not
sex differences are rooted more in biology or socialization
(Harris, 2003a). Several researchers have singled this predic-
tion out as one of the most compelling demonstrations of the
heuristic value of theories derived from an evolutionary
psychology (EP) perspective (Goetz & Shackelford, 2006;
Sesardic, 2003). Before presenting the results of a series of
meta-analyses of the research in this area, I will review the
varying perspectives concerning this issue.
1
Department of Communication, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL,
USA
Corresponding Author:
Christopher J. Carpenter, Department of Communication, Western Illinois
University, 318 Memorial Hall #1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455, USA
Email: cj-carpenter2@wiu.edu
Psychology of Women Quarterly
36(1) 25-37
ªThe Author(s) 2012
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EP Perspective
Buss (2000) explained that one of the fundamental postulates
of EP is that men and women have always faced different
challenges associated with reproduction. This theorizing
focuses on the reproductive challenges of heterosexual cou-
ples. These separate problems produced different solutions
as humans adapted to their environment. Specifically, men
were predicted to be more upset at the discovery of their
mate’s extradyadic sexuality than their mate’s extradyadic
emotional involvement. Women were predicted to be more
upset over the discovery of their mate’s extradyadic emo-
tional involvement than their mate’s extradyadic sexuality.
Buss, Larsen, Westen, and Semmelroth (1992) suggested
that this difference stems from evolutionary pressures. A
man, they pointed out, could never be certain if he is the bio-
logical father of his mate’s child during the long period of
human evolution. Clearly, a man can get genetic testing now,
but from this perspective, jealousy is thought to be based on
the human male’s biological characteristics that were devel-
oped long before genetic testing. If his mate does not birth his
children, his genes will not be passed on; therefore, any
genetic variation that helps men prevent other men from hav-
ing sex with his mate will be selected. Buss et al. claimed that
sexual jealousy evolved to fill that need.
According to Buss et al. (1992), women face a different
reproductive problem. Whenever a woman bears a child, she
is absolutely certain that her genetic material will be passed
on in that child so that the sexual faithfulness of her mate
is irrelevant. However, if her mate becomes emotionally
attached to another woman, he may decide to devote his
resources to the rearing of that woman’s child rather than her
own. The loss of her mate’s resources may significantly
reduce the survival of, and eventual reproduction by, her
genetic child. Because of this problem, Buss et al. suggested
that women were genetically predisposed to be motivated
to prevent their mate from becoming emotionally attached
to other women. They noted that ‘‘cues to the development
of a deep emotional attachment have been reliable leading
indicators to women of potential reduction or loss of their
mate’s investment’’ (p. 251). The EP perspective thus pro-
posed that men would be more upset if their partner engaged
in sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity whereas women
would be more upset if their partner engaged in emotional
infidelity than sexual.
Social–Cognitive Perspective
Harris’s (2003a) social–cognitive theory of jealousy offers
predictions that are distinct from those derived from the EP
hypothesis. Harris argued that evolving a mechanism that
focuses on either type of infidelity would not have been adap-
tive. She suggested that men would not want to focus on cues
to sexual infidelity because it would likely be too late for
them to prevent infidelity by the time overt sexual cues were
present. She also pointed out that in many cases the cues of
emotional and sexual infidelity overlap substantially and vary
from culture to culture. These problems would necessitate a
general mechanism for detecting infidelity rather than a
content-specific one.
Harris (2003a, p. 119) argued that ‘‘jealousy can be
induced when any important aspect of an interpersonal rela-
tionship is threatened.’’ Whenever a rival appears to be threa-
tening an individual’s relationship, that individual makes a
judgment about how threatening that behavior is and what
he or she should do about it. Harris noted that the cognitive
appraisal literature on jealousy finds that interpretation of the
partner’s behavior is a key part of jealousy arousal. For exam-
ple, when an individual sees her or his mate talking to a desir-
able potential rival, evaluations are made of how threatening
the rival is and what the meaning of their interaction is. If the
mate is acting in ways that can be interpreted as flirtatious in
one’s culture, then jealousy is aroused. This general detection
mechanism allows both cultural and cognitive elements to
play a role in jealousy arousal. Harris pointed out that an
overall drive to make appraisals about threats to one’s pri-
mary relationship could just as easily have evolved similarly
for both sexes and would have provided an adaptive advan-
tage for both. Thus, Harris proposed that there are no sex dif-
ferences in the types of jealousy that are upsetting to women
and men.
Double-Shot Perspective
Another critique of the EP position was provided by DeSteno
and Salovey (1996) who proposed what they called the
‘‘double-shot hypothesis.’’ In the original Buss et al. (1992)
studies, participants were shown two pairs of scenarios
(referred to in their article as Scenario Pairs 1 and 2). In each
pair of scenarios, one of them described emotional infidelity
and the other described sexual infidelity. The participants
were asked to choose which situation was more distressing.
The double-shot hypothesis argued that the participants do
not perceive each scenario as presenting only one type of infi-
delity; rather, because of common stereotypes about how
each sex becomes romantically attached, emotional and sex-
ual infidelities were perceived intertwined in a ‘‘double
shot.’’
DeSteno and Salovey (1996) argued that when a man
learns that his female partner has had sex with another man,
he assumes that she is also in love with him because women
are stereotypically believed to have sex only with individuals
with whom they are also emotionally involved. Thus, sexual
infidelity by women is perceived by stereotyping men as both
sexual and emotional. In contrast, stereotyping men can envi-
sion emotional attachments by women devoid of sexuality. If
the double-shot interpretation then was an accurate descrip-
tion of how women’s sexual infidelity is perceived by men,
men would logically choose sexual infidelity as more distres-
sing because it probably involves both forms of infidelity.
26 Psychology of Women Quarterly 36(1)
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At the same time, DeSteno and Salovey (1996) predicted
that gender stereotyping by women would follow an opposite
logic. They argued that stereotyping women believe that men
who form deep emotional attachments with women are prob-
ably also having sex with them whereas men often have sex
without emotional attachment. So for the women, emotional
infidelity should be rated as more distressing because women
assume that sexual infidelity is also occurring. Both forms of
gender stereotyping then would work in tandem to increase
the gap in women’s and men’s infidelity ratings, and indeed
this hypothesized similarity was what DeSteno and Salovey
found. Furthermore, the description of sexual infidelity they
showed to participants in Buss et al.’s (1992) study described
it as ‘‘passionate sexual intercourse’’ (see Table 1, Scenario
Pair 1), possibly further conflating sexual with emotional
infidelity.
In order to tease apart the influence of sexuality and
emotions, Buss et al. (1999) developed four additional pairs
of scenarios that directly addressed both sexual and emo-
tional infidelity. The first added scenario pair asked partici-
pants to imagine that both types of infidelity had occurred
and then asked which was more distressing (see Question 3
in Table 1). This forced-choice directly takes the differential
base rates of both occurring suggested by the double-shot into
account by forcing the participants to consider both types at
one time. The additional three scenarios specify one trans-
gression without the other (see Scenario Pairs 4–6 in Table
1). In the present meta-analyses, if the predicted sex differ-
ence emerges across studies using these scenario pairs, such
a finding would be inconsistent with the double-shot hypoth-
esis. Several researchers have examined the problem using
this methodology (e.g., Brase, Caprar, & Voracek, 2004;
Henline, Lamke, & Howard, 2007; Ward & Voracek,
2004), and these results will be included in the present
meta-analyses. These studies generally find the statistically
significant interactions predicted by EP between sex of the
participant and the type of infidelity chosen as more distres-
sing. Yet, it remains to be seen if the effect sizes associated
with responses to the double-shot scenarios are as large as
those found for the original scenarios.
Other researchers have argued that the double-shot
hypothesis can be tested by examining the responses of gay
men and lesbians. Dijkstra et al. (2001) suggested that gay
men and lesbians perceive infidelity similarly to heterosex-
uals of the other sex, basing their stereotyped expectations
on the sex of their partner rather than on their own sex.
According to this interpretation, stereotyping gay men, like
heterosexual women, would assume that if their male partner
had committed emotional infidelity, that partner was also
having sex; however, they would not necessarily equate sex-
ual involvement with emotional connection. Stereotyping les-
bians, like heterosexual men, would assume that the sexual
infidelity of their female partner implies emotional infidelity
as well, whereas they would not necessarily equate emotional
sharing with sexual transgression. Dijkstra et al. claimed that
consistently finding that gay men are more concerned about
emotional, and lesbians with sexual, infidelity would be con-
sistent with the double-shot hypothesis. This prediction sug-
gests that the sex difference in infidelity reactions is not a
product of innate differences in jealousy, but rather a stereo-
typic response to the expected behavior of one’s partner. If
gay and lesbian samples show a parallel pattern based on the
sex of their partner, then that finding would be consistent with
the double-shot hypothesis.
It is important to note that this hypothesis does not imply
that lesbians are more likely than heterosexual women to pos-
sess male characteristics or that gay men are more likely to
possess female characteristics than heterosexual men.
Instead, the hypothesis proposes that everyone has the same
gender-stereotypical assumptions about men and women and
that they apply those assumptions to their partner’s behavior.
Table 1. Buss et al.’s (1999) Items
Scenario Pair 1: Which of the following events would be more
distressing?
A. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to
that other person (emotional infidelity), or
B. Imagining your partner enjoying passionate sexual intercourse
with that other person (sexual infidelity).
Scenario Pair 2: Which of the following events would be more
distressing?
A. Imagining your partner falling in love with that other person
(emotional infidelity), or
B. Imagining your partner trying different sexual positions with that
person (sexual infidelity).
Scenario Pair 3: Imagine your partner both formed an emotional
attachment to another person and had sexual intercourse with
that other person. Which aspect of your partner’s involvement
would upset you more?
A. The sexual intercourse withthat other person (sexual infidelity), or
B. The emotional attachment to that other person (emotional
infidelity).
Scenario Pair 4: Which would upset or distress you more?
A. Imagining your partner having sexual intercourse with that
person, but you are certain that they will not form a deep
emotional attachment (sexual, without emotional infidelity), or
B. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to
that person, but you are certain that they will not have sexual
intercourse (emotional, without sexual, infidelity).
Scenario Pair 5: Which would upset or distress you more?
A. Imagining that your partner is still sexually interested in the
former lover, but is no longer in love with this person (sexual,
without emotional infidelity), or
B. Imagining that your partner is still emotionally involved with the
former lover, but is no longer sexually interested in this person
(emotional, without sexual, infidelity).
Scenario Pair 6: Which would upset or distress you more?
A. Imagining your partner having sexual intercourse for just one
night with another person, with no chance of any further
involvement (sexual, without emotional infidelity), or
B. Imagining your partner becoming emotionally involved with
another person, with no chance of any sexual involvement
(emotional, without sexual, infidelity).
Carpenter 27
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Theoretically, bisexual individuals of either sex would be
more upset by sexual infidelity when they happen to have a
female partner but would be more upset by emotional infide-
lity when they have a male partner. Unfortunately, no
research has been conducted on that hypothesis. Thus, sam-
ples of gay men and lesbians will be included to test the
double-shot hypothesis in the present meta-analyses.
Previous Meta-Analyses
Harris’s (2003a) meta-analysis of 32 studies found insubstan-
tial and inconsistent sex differences in response to the differ-
ent types of infidelity consistent with the social–cognitive
perspective Harris proposed. That meta-analysis also found
that sexual orientation moderated the relationship between
sex and response to infidelity such that the same partner-
focused pattern was found for samples of gay men and
lesbians. This finding was consistent with the double-shot
perspective. The Harris meta-analysis also found that the
effect sizes were larger when student samples were used than
nonstudent samples. Harris proposed that student samples
find a larger effect because young males have a more heigh-
tened sex drive than they do at other points in their life which
might cause them to have an increased focus on sex.
The current meta-analyses will expand on Harris’s (2003a)
excellent review in several ways. First, the 66 new studies
that have been conducted since then will triple the total size
of the sample of studies. Furthermore, Harris also argued that
continuous measures of jealousy do not find sex differences
in the amount of jealousy aroused by the two types of infide-
lity. At the time of Harris’s publication, there were not
enough studies employing continuous measures to test that
assertion meta-analytically. The current meta-analyses will
be able to test the claim that the effects are smaller when the
participants are rating each type of infidelity on continuous
response scales instead of the dichotomous forced-choice
items. Also, the current meta-analyses will examine the aver-
age effect size for the first time for the studies that employed
the four new pairs of scenarios (Buss et al., 1999) that were
designed to test the double-shot hypothesis.
Furthermore, Harris’s (2003a) meta-analysis examined the
issue of cross-cultural variability but did not have enough inter-
national samples to determine the effects of different cultures on
reactions to emotional and sexual infidelity. Although some
minor cultural variability is expected under the EP predictions
(Sagarin, 2005), as Buss et al. (1999) explained in their seminal
article:
... the underlying psychology of jealousy is proposed to con-
tain design features that reflect solutions to the recurrent
adaptive problems that each sex faced over the long expanse
of human evolutionary history. These design features are
hypothesized to be universal, and hence are predicted to be
found across cultures. This provides an additional arena for
empirical testing and potential falsification. (p. 126)
In order to test this hypothesis, samples from different cultures
will be compared in the present meta-analyses. If the predicted
set of findings emerges in some cultures and theopposite pattern
in others, Harris (2003a) argues that such differences would be
consistent with the social–cognitive perspective because the cir-
cumstances that indicate threats to the relationship vary from
culture to culture. These two perspectives thus offer competing
hypotheses. Although the current meta-analyses do not contain
enough international samples for a culture-by-culture compari-
son, there are sufficient data to test whether the United States
differs from the rest of the world. Ideally, cultural-specific
hypotheses would be derived and tested from the social–cogni-
tive theory based on culture specific triggers of jealousy; how-
ever, such detailed comparisons await further research.
Method
Literature Search
Several steps were taken in order to find the maximum num-
ber of studies. Two databases were searched using the term
‘‘infidelity’’ including Communication and Mass Media
Complete and PsychINFO.Web of Science was used in order
to find all the articles that cited the seminal work in this area
by Buss et al. (1992). The references sections of all obtained
articles, especially the research reviews by Harris (2003a)
and Buss (2000, 2007), were also combed to find additional
research articles. The possibility of my search missing an
unacceptable number of null unpublished findings is belied
by the presence of several articles that were published focus-
ing on null findings in this area (DeSteno, Bartlett, Braver-
man, & Salovey, 2002; Grice & Seely, 2000; Harris, 2000,
2003a, 2003b; Sheets & Wolfe, 2001).
Study Selection
There have been several other dependent variables examined
including using functional magenetic resonance imaging
scans (Takahashi et al., 2006), physiological measures (Buss
et al., 1992; Grice & Seely, 2000), and purely cognitive reac-
tions (Schu
¨tzwohl & Koch, 2004). Because there are not
enough articles using any of these methodologies to be
meta-analyzed, my review is limited to articles that report
studies using participant self-report of emotional reactions
to both types of infidelity. From this set of articles, 172 effect
sizes were coded. For Scenario Pair 1, there were 54 studies
(N¼10,632); for Scenario Pair 2, 29 (N¼5,035); for Sce-
nario Pair 3, 14 (N¼2,519); for Scenario Pair 4, 18 (N¼
4,115); for Scenario Pair 5, 7 (N¼1,561); and for Scenario
Pair 6, 8 (N¼1,561). There were 42 (N¼7,876) studies that
reported data from continuous measures.
Coding
The coding and effect sizes for each study can be obtained by
contacting the author. Aspects of the sample that were coded
28 Psychology of Women Quarterly 36(1)
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include whether or not it used a student sample, the region
from which the sample was drawn (United States or interna-
tional), the sexual orientation of the sample (heterosexual or
lesbian and gay), and the size of the sample including the
breakdown by participants’ sex. Next, the methodology of the
studies was coded for whether the study used the forced-
choice format or a continuous measure as well as the infide-
lity scenarios presented to the participants. Reliabilities for
the continuous measures were also recorded when they were
reported.
In addition, several different effect sizes were calculated.
For the forced-choice measures, the man:woman odds ratio
was computed by calculating the odds of a man choosing sex-
ual infidelity as more distressing than emotional infidelity
divided by the odds of a woman choosing sexual as more dis-
tressing than emotional. The natural log of each odds ratio
was used to calculate the weighted mean odds ratio in order
to place a null effect at zero and allow more accurate statis-
tical analysis (Haddock, Rindskopf, & Shadish, 1998). From
the odds ratio, Digby’s (1983) tetrachoric correlation approx-
imation was calculated. Positive correlations would indicate
that men are more likely than women to choose sexual infide-
lity as more distressing than emotional; negative correlations,
that women are more likely. The correlation coefficient was
not transformed to Fisher’s zbecause recent simulation stud-
ies have shown that this transformation tends to reduce accu-
racy in meta-analyses (Schulze, 2007).
Correlations were also calculated using the continuous
measure data. The correlation was computed by calculating
the dstatistic and converting it to the correlation coefficient.
Both the within-subject comparisons and the between-subject
comparisons were calculated this way as per the recommen-
dations in Dunlap, Cortina, Vaslow, and Burke (1996). There
were four correlations calculated for each study. First, the dif-
ference between men’s scores in response to sexual versus
emotional infidelity was created. A positive correlation indi-
cates that the men reported that sexual infidelity would cause
stronger emotional reactions than emotional infidelity. The
second correlation calculated was the same difference for
women, with positive scores indicating that the women in that
sample thought sexual infidelity would cause them to feel
more distress than emotional. The third and fourth were when
men and women were then compared within type of infide-
lity, and scores were calculated to show if men thought each
kind of infidelity would produce stronger emotions than those
reported by the women in their sample (as indicated by pos-
itive correlations).
Controversies have arisen concerning which statistical
comparison is the proper way to test the EP predictions (Bul-
ler, 2005; Buss & Haselton, 2005; Harris, 2005, Sagarin,
2005). Buller (2005) explained that when one conducts a
study measuring which type of infidelity is more upsetting
to which sex, there are a number of ways to analyze the result-
ing data set. Buller suggested that each sex should be exam-
ined separately, and the size of the preference for that sex’s
predicted type of infidelity should be measured. Essentially,
one looks at how much more men are distressed by sexual
infidelity than emotional and then one looks at how much
more women are distressed by emotional infidelity than sex-
ual. This choice preserves the original EP predictions of Buss
et al. (1992) that men would be more likely to be upset by
sexual infidelity than emotional and women would be more
likely to be upset by emotional than sexual (Lishner, Nguyen,
Stocks, & Zillmer, 2008). Buller’s recommendations will be
used here to analyze my data.
Data Analysis
The effect sizes were averaged using the sample size weight-
ing method outlined in Hunter and Schmidt (2004). There
were several pairs of scenarios commonly used in the litera-
ture that were based on Buss et al.’s (1992) and Buss et al.’s
(1999) scenarios. Many of the studies using Buss et al.’s
(1999) forced-choice items asked participants to respond to
more than one of the six pairs of scenarios. Effect sizes for
the forced-choice data were grouped and averaged based on
which of Buss et al.’s (1992) and Buss et al., (1999) pairs
of scenarios they tested in order to determine if the different
pairs of scenarios are substantially different from each other
and to avoid nonindependence of data. The scenarios in the
studies were coded based on which of the Buss et al. pairs
of scenarios the authors used (see Table 1 for the scenarios).
Some of the studies that used the forced-choice items
asked the participants to indicate which type of infidelity
would produce a stronger emotional reaction for several
different emotions. In such cases, participants’ ratings of
‘‘distress’’ were used in keeping with the seminal Buss
et al. (1992) study. If distress was not measured, upset (fol-
lowed by jealousy) was used. For those studies using contin-
uous measures, the effect sizes were corrected for attenuation
due to error of measurement using Hunter and Schmidt’s
(2004) artifact distribution method.
The correlation coefficient was used to perform the statis-
tical tests to determine whether further moderator searches
were necessary. If 75%or more of the obtained variance can
be explained by sampling error and artifacts, the remainder
can be assumed to be accounted for by uncorrected artifacts
so that further moderator analysis is deemed unnecessary
(Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). Accounting for more than 75%
of the obtained variance also indicates that the estimate of the
population correlation probably represents one population of
studies (a fixed-effects estimate, also called a homogeneous
effect), whereas if less than 75%of the variance can be
explained, then the estimate is the mean of a range of popu-
lation correlations (a random effects estimate, also called a
heterogeneous effect).
Credibility intervals indicate how wide the population
effect sizes are expected to vary because of the undetected
moderators and uncorrected artifacts (Hunter & Schmidt,
2000). They represent an index of how heterogeneous the
Carpenter 29
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findings are. The wider the credibility interval, the more
heterogeneous the body of studies is. If 100%of the variance
can be attributed to sampling error and artifacts, then there is
no credibility interval, and the effect is thought to be an accu-
rate point estimate of the population parameter. Confidence
intervals were not calculated because they are often biased
in the presence of heterogeneity (Hunter & Schmidt, 2000).
Hunter and Schmidt (2000) noted that the same problem
applies to calculating statistical significance tests of effect
size estimates. Because of these considerations, credibility
intervals were reported, and neither confidence intervals nor
statistical significance tests were calculated.
Results
Summary
In general, the results were not consistent with the EP predic-
tions. For the most part, both men and women were more
likely to report that emotional infidelity would be more
distressingthansexualinfidelitywhenforcedtochoose.
For the continuous data, both men and women indicated
that sexual infidelity would be more upsetting. These data
were consistent with the social–cognitive predictions
because there were no consistent sex effects, especially for
the continuous data. These data were also consistent with
the double-shot hypothesis prediction concerning gay men
and lesbians such that the effect was parallel according to
the sex of the raters’ partner. Below, I first will examine
the data tables, followed by the data relevant to each
perspective.
Data Tables
Table 2 contains the forced-choice data such that participants
were asked to indicate which type of infidelity would
be more distressing. It is divided according to which of
the six pairs of scenarios participants were responding
and further subdivided by moderator (students, region,
and sexual orientation). Table 3 presents the summary of
the meta-analyses of the studies that used continuous
measures of emotional reaction to each type of infidelity
separately. The effect sizes are broken down by the com-
parisons of sexual with emotional infidelity and of men
and women.
EP Perspective’s Predictions
Recall that according to the EP predictions men would con-
sider sexual infidelity to be more distressing than emotional.
Examination of Column 6 in Table 2 shows the extent to
which men consider sexual infidelity to be more distressing
than emotional. For the first and fourth pairs of scenarios, het-
erosexual men tended to be slightly more likely to be more
distressed by sexual infidelity than emotional as indicated
by the odds being higher than 1.0. For the other four pairs
of scenarios, men were consistently more likely to
consider emotional infidelity to be more distressing as
indicated by the odds of men choosing sexual infidelity
to be more distressing than emotional being consistently
below 1.0. Table 3 shows that men’s ratings of how dis-
tressing sexual infidelity would be are higher than their
ratings of how distressing emotional infidelity would be.
For none of these estimates did sampling error explain
enough variance to indicate a homogeneous set of effect
sizes. This heterogeneity suggests the presence of modera-
tors. The forced-choice data are not consistent with the
predictionthatmenwouldfindsexual infidelity more dis-
tressing than emotional but the continuous data were con-
sistent with that prediction.
According to the predictions derived from EP, it was also
predicted that women would consider emotional infidelity to
be more distressing than sexual. Table 2 shows that the odds
of a heterosexual woman choosing sexual infidelity as more
distressing than emotional are consistently below 1.0 for
every pair of scenarios. This finding is consistent with the
EP hypothesis. On the other hand, Table 3 shows that women
who rated how distressing each type of infidelity was sepa-
rately consistently rated sexual infidelity as more distressing
than emotional. This finding is inconsistent with the EP
hypothesis. Essentially, the forced-choice data show that both
sexes tended to regard emotional infidelity as more distres-
sing but the continuous data showed that both sexes regarded
sexual infidelity as more distressing. Although the two
measurement techniques produce different results, both
sexes generally chose the same type of infidelity as more
distressing.
According to Buss et al. (1999), EP would predict that
although the effect size may vary, men in every culture would
perceive sexual infidelity as more distressing than emotional
whereas women would consistently perceive emotional infi-
delity as more distressing than sexual. Examination of the
odds of heterosexual men reporting that sexual infidelity
would be more distressing than emotional found in Column
6 of Table 2 shows that the odds are in the predicted direction
(greater than 1.0) for the U.S. samples for Scenario Pairs 1, 3,
4, 5, and 6, but not 2. The odds for the international samples
are in the predicted direction only for Scenario Pair 4. In
every other case, heterosexual men living in countries outside
the United States were more likely to indicate that emotional
infidelity by their partner would be more distressing than sex-
ual. Given that U.S. men do tend to find sexual infidelity to be
more distressing than emotional, but the men from the rest of
the world do not, the data are not consistent with the EP-
derived prediction of cross-cultural consistency. Heterosex-
ual women were consistently more likely to indicate that
emotional infidelity would be more distressing than sex-
ual—every moderator subdivision for heterosexual women
contained odds of less than 1.0. This finding was consistent
with the EP hypothesis of cross-cultural consistency for
women.
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Table 2. Results of the Forced-Choice Measures Separated by Scenario and Moderator
Column 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Scenario and Moderator
Number
of
Studies
Weighted Mean rfor
the Overall Sex
Difference
a
80% Credibility
Interval
b
% of Variance
Explained by Sam-
pling Error
Weighted
Mean Odds
Ratio
c
Weighted Mean Odds of
Men Choosing Sexual Over
Emotional
Weighted Mean Odds of
Women Choosing Sexual
Over Emotional
Scenario 1: Emotional versus sexual 54 0.40 .15 < r< .65 8.60 3.23 1.12 0.35
U.S. students 37 0.45 .32 < r< .58 24.26 3.88 1.51 0.37
U.S. nonstudents 4 0.31 .18 < r< .44 25.83 2.42 0.82 0.34
International students 8 0.40 .23 < r< .58 13.51 3.22 0.74 0.25
International nonstudents 3 0.23 .12 < r< .35 32.88 1.91 0.56 0.29
Lesbian and gay 2 0.23 .29 < r<.18 74.21 0.53 0.51 0.97
Scenario 2: Love versus sexual positions 29 0.49 .25 < r< .72 9.01 4.25 0.64 0.14
U.S. students 17 0.32 .10 < r< .54 28.97 5.74 0.91 0.15
International students 8 0.43 .06 < r< .92 4.89 3.60 0.52 0.13
Nonstudents 2 0.49 — 100.00 4.27 0.41 0.09
Lesbian and gay 2 0.09 .48 < r< .66 2.93 1.31 0.26 0.18
Scenario 3: Both occurred 14 0.27 .06 < r< .59 6.95 2.21 0.78 0.37
United States 7 0.44 .05 < r< .91 6.42 3.72 1.45 0.39
International 6 0.22 .07 < r< .52 17.06 1.85 0.52 0.29
Scenario 4: One not the other 18 0.33 .05 < r< .60 7.05 2.62 1.30 0.41
United States 8 0.44 .31 < r< .57 19.93 3.61 1.14 0.29
International 7 0.28 .04 < r< .54 9.05 2.32 1.60 0.58
Lesbian and gay 2 .18 — 100.00 0.62 0.87 1.40
Scenario 5: Former lover 7 0.22 .01 < r< .45 11.36 1.83 0.88 0.48
United States 2 0.42 — 100.00 3.27 1.24 0.38
International 4 0.24 .18 < r< .30 61.27 1.93 0.77 0.42
Scenario 6: One but no chance of other 8 0.13 .01 < r< .50 10.76 2.15 0.57 0.59
United States 2 0.65 — 100.00 8.03 1.64 0.20
International 5 0.13 .03 < r< .30 23.25 2.72 0.57 0.33
Note. The subdivisions by world region and student status do not include the samples of gay men and lesbians.
a
A positive correlation indicates that men are more likely than women to report that sexual infidelity is more distressing than emotional infidelity; a negative correlation, that women are more likely than men to report
that sexual infidelity is more distressing than emotional infidelity.
b
Shows how widely the effect size is expected to vary based on the influence of moderators.
c
Calculated by taking the odds of a man indicating that sexual infidelity was more distressing than emotional and dividing it by the odds of a woman indicating that sexual infidelity was more distressing than emotional.
31
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Social–Cognitive Perspective’s Predictions
Social–cognitive theory predicted that there would be no sub-
stantial sex differences concerning which type of infidelity
participants would rate as more distressing. As stated above,
for most subsamples responding to the force-choice items,
both sexes tended to report that emotional infidelity would
be more distressing than sexual. Also, both sexes indicated
that sexual infidelity would be more distressing than
emotional on the continuous measures data displayed in
Table 2. This result is consistent with the social–cognitive
hypothesis.
In the explication of the social–cognitive hypothesis,
Harris (2003a) also included the prediction that student status
would increase the size of the sex differences because young
men tend to be more focused on sexuality than older men.
There were only enough nonstudent samples to subdivide the
results for Scenario Pairs 1 and 2. The only subsample of het-
erosexual men who responded to Scenario Pair 1 who were
likely to indicate that sexual infidelity would be more
distressing than emotional were the group of samples from
U.S. students. American nonstudents and the international
samples of men were consistently more likely to choose emo-
tional infidelity as more distressing than sexual. This finding
is consistent with the social–cognitive perspective. Every
subsample of male heterosexual participants who responded
to Scenario Pair 2 was more likely to indicate that emotional
infidelity would be more distressing than sexual. Although
the meta-analysis of Scenario Pair 2 did suggest that students
responded in the same way as nonstudents, none of the sam-
ples who responded to this scenario produced results consis-
tent with the EP perspective.
Double-Shot Perspective’s Predictions
According to the double-shot prediction, when the possibility
of one type of infidelity implying the presence of both was
controlled for, the sex differences were predicted to be insub-
stantial. There is some support for this hypothesis in that the
point estimates of the overall effect sizes found in Column 2
of Table 2 are somewhat larger for the first two scenario pairs
than the effect sizes for the remaining four double-shot sce-
nario pairs. This finding should be considered with caution
because the credibility intervals are so wide given the hetero-
geneity of variance that there appear to be moderators that
could make the effect sizes equivalent.
The double-shot hypothesis also predicted that gay men
would consider emotional infidelity to be more distressing
than sexual infidelity. Table 2 shows that gay men considered
emotional infidelity to be more distressing for every scenario
pair for which there were enough samples to calculate an
average effect. (For scenario pairs for which there is not a set
with lesbians and gay men listed in Table 2, it is because there
was only one study with lesbians and gay men in the set of
studies available for that scenario pair.) This finding is con-
sistent with the double-shot hypothesis.
The double-shot hypothesis also predicted that lesbians
would consider sexual infidelity to be more distressing than
emotional. The data were consistent with this prediction such
that lesbians were much more likely to consider sexual infi-
delity as more distressing than emotional. For Scenario Pair
1, the odds of a lesbian choosing sexual infidelity as more dis-
tressing were nearly equal to her chances of choosing emo-
tional. For Scenario Pair 2, lesbians were more likely to
report that emotional infidelity would be more distressing
than sexual. Despite this inconsistency, for Scenario Pairs 1
and 4, lesbians were more likely than gay men to choose sex-
ual infidelity as more distressing than emotional. This finding
is the exact opposite of the standard EP prediction for
women; instead, the data from lesbians were largely consis-
tent with the double-shot hypothesis. Overall, the support for
the double-shot hypotheses was somewhat equivocal, but the
data did tend toward consistency with the double-shot
predictions.
Discussion
The EP hypotheses predicted that men would be more likely to
indicate that sexual infidelity would be more distressing than
emotional. In general, the data were not consistent with this
hypothesis because most samples ofraters who responded to the
forced-choice questions indicated that emotional infidelity was
Table 3. Results of the Continuous Measures
Comparison
Weighted and
Corrected Mean r
80% Credibility
Interval
% of Variance Explained by
Sampling Error and Corrected Artifacts
By Type of Infidelity
Men: Sexual—Emotional
a
0.24 .06 < r< .42 41.69
Women: Sexual—Emotional
b
0.09 .18 < r< .35 21.93
Of Men and Women
Sexual: Men—Women
c
0.06 .20 < r< .08 36.34
Emotional: Men—Women
d
0.21 .33 < r<.10 43.60
Note.
a
The extent to which men reported that sexual infidelity was more distressing than emotional.
b
The extent to which women reported that sexual infidelity was more distressing than emotional.
c
How much more distressing men considered sexual infidelity to be than women did.
d
How much more distressing men considered emotional infidelity to be than women did.
32 Psychology of Women Quarterly 36(1)
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more distressing than sexual, regardless of the raters’ sex.
Furthermore, the samples who responded to the continuous
questions consistently indicated that sexual infidelity was more
distressing than emotional, again regardless of the raters’ biolo-
gical sex.
The EP hypothesis found the strongest support from U.S. stu-
dents. Most nonstudentmen and men fromother countries were
more likely to indicate that emotional infidelity would be more
distressing than sexual. These data suggest that the EP predic-
tions are only able to explain the choices of American hetero-
sexual male students. If, however, the EP hypothesis can only
explain the behavior of these U.S. students, it seems unlikely
that an evolutionary hypothesis is an appropriate explanatory
mechanism. Perhaps, these data showa case where student sam-
ples produce the distorted view of human nature that Sears
(1986) predicted. Harris (2003a) suggested this difference was
due to young men’s heightened interest in sexuality.
The EP hypothesis also predicted that women would find
emotional infidelity to be more upsetting than sexual. The
data were largely consistent with this hypothesis, although
this finding may simply be a reflection of the more general
pattern that both men and women tend to choose emotional
infidelity as more distressing than sexual. On the other hand,
even though most people chose emotional infidelity as more
distressing, heterosexual women were more likely to choose
emotional infidelity as more distressing than heterosexual
men. This result is consistent with EP predictions if one uses
the more liberal criteria of Sagarin (2005) that only required
an interaction between participants’ sex and the type of infi-
delity that distresses them more.
The findings were largely consistent with Harris’s (2003a)
social–cognitive approach. She argued that men and women
did not evolve separate, content-specific mechanisms for
detecting relational cheating. Instead, she argued that they
both evolved a general vigilance against indicators of infide-
lity. This general vigilance causes people to look for cues of
infidelity and to use their specific cultural lens to interpret
them. From this perspective, both types of infidelity would
probably be perceived as threatening. Thus, she predicted
no sex differences and cultural variability in the direction
of the effects. The forced-choice data found that for the most
part, men and women are likely to consider emotional infide-
lity to be more distressing than sexual. The finding that
American male students tended to consider sexual infidelity
more distressing whereas most other samples of men did not
is consistent with her prediction of cultural variability.
The continuous data were the most inconsistent with the
EP predictions and most consistent with Harris’s (2003a)
social–cognitive prediction of no sex differences. Harris pre-
dicted that both sexes would simply make an assessment of a
given behavior by their partner and use their cultural lens to
determine if there is a threat to their relationship. There was
no substantial interaction between sex and type of infidelity.
Both sexes rated sexual infidelity as more distressing than
emotional and women in general rated both types of infidelity
as more distressing than men. All the findings in the contin-
uous response scale data, even after correcting for measure-
ment error, were still quite small.
The present evidence was more consistent than inconsis-
tent with the double-shot predictions. The double-shot sce-
narios did find smaller sex differences than the original
scenarios, but the heterogeneity of variance in those added
sets of effect sizes makes this conclusion tenuous. When
comparing gay men’s and lesbians’ responses to those of het-
erosexuals, they were similar based on the sex of the rater’s
partner. These results are consistent with the double-shot
hypothesis (Dijkstra et al., 2001) in that (a) most people
whose partner is a man (i.e., gay men and heterosexual
women) will consider a report of emotional infidelity to likely
imply the co-occurrence of sexual infidelity whereas sexual
infidelity does not imply emotional and (b) most people whose
partner is a woman (i.e., lesbians and heterosexual men) will
believe that if their partner is having extradyadic sex, there
is also an emotional attachment whereas an emotional attach-
ment does not imply a sexual one. This line of research sug-
gests that the effects found in previous studies were not
rooted in the nature of their participants’ sexual orientation,
but rather in their perceptions of the likely pattern of behavior
appropriate to stereotyping of their partner’s gender.
Interestingly enough, this pattern emerged for the studies
using samples of gay men and lesbians who responded to Sce-
nario 4 which stated clearly that only one type of infidelity
was occurring and that the other was not. The scenarios
designed to test the double-shot hypothesis may have failed
to convince people that the presence of one type of infidelity
did not imply that the other was also occurring. Dijkstra et al.
(2001) suggested that even if the scenario specifies that only
one type of infidelity is taking place, the devastating effect of
the co-occurrence of both warrants increased vigilance even
if only one type appears to be present. It is also possible that
an explanation other then the double-shot is required to
explain the results from the samples of gay men and lesbians.
Methodology Differences
The results from the forced-choice meta-analyses consistently
found that heterosexualwomen were more likely to indicate that
emotional infidelity would be more distressing than sexual. On
the other hand, the results from the meta-analyses of the contin-
uous scale studies found that women were consistently more
likely to be distressed by sexual infidelity than emotional. DeS-
teno et al. (2002) argued that when faced with the forced-choice
methodology, participants put forth more cognitive effort than
when rating emotional responses on Likert-type scales. They
demonstrated that when their participants were under cognitive
load, the sex differencewas substantially diminished.They sug-
gested that continuous measures are a better indicator of jea-
lousy because they tap a less thoughtful and more emotional
reaction. Shackelford, Buss, and Bennett (2002) argued that
continuous measures are problematic because they allow
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respondents to indicate that both types of infidelity would be
equally distressing.This possibility did not appear to be a prob-
lem in the continuous measure studies reviewed here because
differences were reliably detected. These differences, however,
were not in the direction specified by the hypotheses derived
from EP.
Comparison to the Harris Meta-Analysis
The current analysis replicated Harris’s (2003a) findings con-
cerning the effects of sexual orientation and student status. That
meta-analysis did not find that culture moderated the size of the
sex difference, but Harr is noted there may not have been enough
international studies to detect differences. The current meta-
analyses included more international samples and were able
to detect a difference between United States and international
samples. These findings greatly expanded Harris’s initial work
on the nature of jealousy. Also, the current meta-analyses of the
continuous responsescale data provided the strongest rebuttal to
the EP hypothesis. By examining these additional data (includ-
ing dozens of additional studies), the current meta-analyses
were able to strengthen Harris’s critique of the EP explanation
of jealousy. Future work should expand Harris’s argument by
empirically demonstrating the particular features of cultures
that moderate the types of behaviors that arouse jealousy. This
expansion would make Harris’s position more falsifiable than
the current broad prediction of cultural heterogeneity.
Limitations
First, the lack of more studies conducted outside the United
States prevented these meta-analyses from conducting a
stronger test of the competing hypotheses concerning cross-
cultural consistency of the direction of the predicted sex
difference. Until more research is conducted in more coun-
tries, especially based on aspects of the particular cultures
in question, the support for the social–cognitive perspective
must remain tentative. Given the small sample of non-U.S.
countries, my sample may also be biased toward particular
regions of the world. As it stands, American students seem
to be the only group in which men are consistently more
likely to perceive sexual infidelity as more distressing than
emotional in response to a forced-choice question. Future
work is needed to identify the moderators of this effect.
Harris (2003a) suggested it was young men’s elevated focus
on sex. Future work might find cultures with a heightened
focus on sex to determine if one or both sexes are more or less
distressed by sexual infidelity in that culture. Additionally,
the meta-analyses reported are only related to self-reports of
distress in reaction to hypothetical scenarios. More recent work
has been conducted on recall of cues to each type of infidelity
(Schu
¨tzwohl & Koch, 2004) and asking if cognitive load
can change how individuals react to each type of infidelity
(DeSteno et al., 2002). Research that goes beyond the simple
self-report of distress will continue to enrich this literature.
Conclusion
The evidence was not consistent with the EP predictions. My
meta-analyses failed to consistently find that men are more
likely to perceive sexual infidelity as more distressing than
emotional, and this finding weakens the explanatory power
of the EP hypothesis about jealousy. The continuous response
scale data suggested that both sexes perceive sexual infidelity
as more distressing than emotional. The data were largely
consistent with Harris’s (2003a) social–cognitive perspective
and the double-shot perspective (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996).
Rather than conducting further replications of the same six
forced-choice scenarios, future work would profit from using
the various perspectives to test different cognitive and
behavioral predictions. For example, Schu
¨tzwohl (2008a) has
conducted some intriguing studies demonstrating that men
are more distracted by cues to sexual infidelity and women
are more distracted by emotional cues. Schu
¨tzwohl (2008b)
has also expanded the research in this area beyond jealousy
and into relief—such that men are more relieved when sexual
jealousy is disconfirmed and women are more relieved when
emotional jealousy is disconfirmed. Although the traditional
self-report measures in this area are not consistent with the
EP predictions, more subtle means for investigating the pro-
posed sex differences (such as Schu
¨tzwohl’s program of
research) may find additional evidence consistent with the
EP predictions. Also, research with bisexual samples would
provide an interesting test of the double-shot hypothesis
given that these individuals would be predicted to respond
based on their current partner rather than their own sex.
Broadly speaking, these meta-analyses suggest that men
and women do not differ in the types of infidelity that they
find distressing. Instead, men and women seem to become
distressed to the extent that their partner’s behavior threatens
their relationship rather than affects their long-term reproduc-
tive ability. This finding is fitting given that jealousy was
thought to evolve in order to help individuals maintain their
close relationships in a hostile environment that required help
from others for survival.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Fred Oswald and Brent Donnellan
for their helpful suggestions.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
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