Sex Differences in Attitudes toward Partner Infidelity
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Men and women react differently to the two different transgressions as a result of sexually dimorphic selection pressures.
“This is in line with evolutionary theory, which state that men and women react differently to the two different transgressions as a result of sexually dimorphic selection pressures [47].”
From Love and Infidelity: Causes and Consequences (2023) · cites this paper as [47]
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References 38 · Cited by 36
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- Authors
- Tagler, M. J., & Jeffers, H. M.
- Affiliations
- Ball State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tagler, Michael J.
- ORCID
- Tagler, Michael J.
- Venue
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-10-01
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 821-832
- ISSN
- 1474-7049 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10480867
- OpenAlex
- W2169933744
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 2.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2023-10-23)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Evolutionary Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Marriage and Sexual Relationships
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- partner infidelity, sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, sex differences, attitudes toward infidelity, social cognitive theory, emotional distress
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Analysis of Variance, Attitude, Emotions, Extramarital Relations, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Marriage, Sex Characteristics, Stress, Psychological, Meta-Analysis as Topic, Young Adult
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