1. Effects of sexual imagination, relationship experience, and personal infidelity experiences on gender differences in responses to partners' infidelity.
- Author
-
Kato, Tsukasa
- Subjects
- *
FANTASY (Psychology) , *SEXUAL partners , *SCALE analysis (Psychology) , *STATISTICAL power analysis , *PSYCHOLOGICAL distress , *JEALOUSY , *CRONBACH'S alpha , *SPOUSES , *SEX distribution , *HUMAN sexuality , *MULTIPLE regression analysis , *SOCIAL factors , *CULTURE , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *EMOTIONS , *SEX customs , *SEXUAL intercourse , *INTERPERSONAL relations , *IMAGINATION , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *PSYCHOLOGY of college students , *ADULTERY , *PSYCHOSOCIAL factors - Abstract
The sexual imagination hypothesis predicts that gender differences in jealousy emerge from the differences in explicit imagination between men and women. In particular, men strongly respond to partners' sexual infidelity because they can imagine sexual stimuli explicitly. In contrast, women strongly respond to emotional infidelity because they can effortlessly envision emotional infidelity. We hypothesised that higher sexual and romantic imaginations were associated with greater distress over partners' sexual and emotional infidelity, respectively. Participants (226 women and 135 men) answered questions regarding experiences with personal sexual and emotional infidelity and the degree of distress they felt over their partners' sexual and emotional infidelity. They completed the scales for sexual and romantic imaginations. Multiple regression analyses showed that the sexual imagination hypothesis provided a unique explanation for gender differences in jealousy beyond the effects of gender, including relationship experience and experiences with personal sexual and emotional infidelity. Additionally, individuals with relationship experience and experiences with personal sexual and emotional infidelity reported higher sexual and romantic imaginations than those without such experiences. Furthermore, our findings imply that responses to partners' infidelity, considering gender, are more similar than different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF