Testing the sexual imagination hypothesis for gender differences in response to infidelity

Abstract

BackgroundEvolutionary psychologists hypothesized that men are more upset by sexual infidelity than women are, whereas women are more upset by emotional infidelity than men are. On the other hand, the sexual imagination hypothesis states that gender differences in infidelity responses are derived from explicit men’s sexual imagery. Based on the latter hypothesis, we hypothesized that although men would report being more distressed by sexual infidelity than women who were not in a committed relationship (NCR), no gender difference would be reported in a committed relationship (CR).FindingsThese two hypotheses were tested with 598 participants in a CR and 1,643 participants in a NCR. No significant gender difference was found sexual infidelity response in the CR group (d = 0.008, a power of .956), whereas men were more upset than women about sexual infidelity in the NCR group. Moreover, a significant interaction between gender and infidelity type was found in the NCR, whereas no significant interaction between gender and infidelity type was observed in the CR group (partial η2 = 0.005, a power of .943).ConclusionsOur findings supported the sexual imagination hypothesis but were inconsistent with the EJM hypothesis.

Gender differences in response to infidelity types and rival attractiveness

“…As the conclusions in the previous study suggested, the findings on relationship status indirectly supported the imagination hypothesis on infidelity responses because no significant gender differences in jealousy were found for a sample of individuals who were in committed relationships (e.g. Guadagno & Sagarin, 2010;Kato, 2014aKato, , 2014bVoracek, 2001). However, a few studies (e.g.…”

“…Carpenter, 2012;DeSteno, Bartlett, Braverman, & Salovey, 2002;Harris, 2003aHarris, , 2005Kato, 2014aKato, , 2014b and alternative interpretations that can account for gender differences in infidelity responses (for review, see Edlund & Sagarin, 2017;Kato, 2017); for example, social cognitive theory (Harris, 2003a(Harris, , 2003b and the double-shot hypothesis (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996;Harris, 2003a). The imagination hypothesis on jealousy (Kato, 2014a(Kato, , 2014b proposes that gender differences in responses to infidelity are derived from the capacity for imagination which varies between genders, particularly men's explicit sexual imagery and women's explicit romantic imagery. According to the imagination hypothesis, men and women should not differ in response to a partner's sexual and emotional infidelity provided that men and women can imagine emotional and sexual infidelity vividly and realistically.…”

“…Becker, Sagarin, Guadagno, Millevoi, & Nicastle, 2004). Kato's (2014b) analysis using Becker et al's (2004) data showed that the difference in imagining partner infidelity between individuals who were or were not in a committed relationship had a large effect size (Cohen's d ¼ 1.14). This relationship status was a predictor of gender differences in jealousy (e.g.…”

“…Becker et al, 2004;Burchell & Ward, 2011;Guadagno & Sagarin, 2010;Kato, 2014a;Voracek, 2001). For example, in a study with a large sample of college students who were not in a committed relationship (Kato, 2014b), men reported to be more distressed by sexual infidelity than women, while women reported to be more distressed by emotional infidelity than men. Conversely, no significant interaction between gender and infidelity type was found in participants who were in serious committed relationships.…”

“…Four studies have examined gender differences in jealously in a Japanese sample (i.e. Buss et al, 1999;Kato, 2014aKato, , 2014bTakahashi, Matsuura, Yahata, Koeda, Suhara, & Okubo, 2006). Two of them (Kato, 2014a(Kato, , 2014b supported the imagination hypothesis while the others did not test for it.…”