Marcella DiSciullo

Kenneth Levy

29, March 2018

Sex Differences in Jealousy: A Contribution From Attachment Theory

In this study, the main thesis is that more men become more jealous about sexual

infidelity than emotional infidelity. Oppositely, women would consider emotional infidelity more

distressing than sexual infidelity.

The author’s claim about this thesis relies on many things. First, it is more common that

men have strong dismissing attachments than women do. Men are more likely to have dismissing

attachments, while, women are more likely to contain fearful avoidant attachments. This was

supported by previous studies of self-report and certain interview measures. Secondly, the author

claims that sex differences in jealousy stem from attachment style. Dismissing male participants

were hypothesized to have more jealousy about sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. But,

secure men were more likely to report more jealousy about emotional infidelity than sexual

infidelity.

For the first argument about association between sex and attachment style, these facts

were supported by previous studies in the dismissing attachment field. Then, in their own study

results found for this hypothesis to be proven true. Around 100 men tested via the Relationship

Questionnaire. This self-tested questionnaire asked participants what their attitudes are to

romantic relationships. These questions correlated to specific attachments, such as, secure,

preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing. For the next argument, a lot of research is used to justify.

A Bus Infidelity Questionnaire was used to measure jealousy. This included a questionnaire

about which event would stress them out more: a.) their partner having meaningful sexual
intercourse with another person or b.) their partner having deep emotional feelings for someone

else. With these studies, it was found to be either 3 or 4 times more likely to be more jealous

over sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. This study was then broken down into different

parts. First, the Odds-Ratio analysis was used to break down the data between secure and

dismissing men and women. It was found that dismissing men were 50 times more likely to be

more jealous about sexual infidelity. However, secure men were more jealous about emotional

infidelity. Looking at dismissing women, they were four times more likely than secure woman to

report more jealousy over sexual infidelity. Although these hypothese were proven true, this

study did have some limitations and lead to further questions for more research. Certain

limitations included how there was no real way to show if the responses to jealousy would

correlate to “real life” jealousy because this study was based on self-tests. Also, it is not a 100%

if biological sex is the reason that men and women’s results differentiated in attachment styles.

Also, this study led to further questions for future research. It could be further looked into if any

type of attachment overrides biological differences or if the self-reports were changed to include

physiological measures of jealousy, would the results in the study have changed? These

questions are raised after this study, and it would be cool to see if the results of them would

change the outcome of this study.

Yes, in Psychology 100, we learned about the John Bolby’s Attachment Theory. This

theory basically described how attachment starts early on in childhood development when

children are placed under stressful situations. These children were seen to become distressed

when separated from their mothers. This shows how the mother provides security and comfort to

the child. I think John Bolby’s attachment theory relates to this study because it shows how

grown adults still show these signs of stress (jealousy) when put in a stressful situation; such as
emotional infidelity or sexual infidelity. This explains why the attachment style and jealousy

types were linked. The men with Secure attachment showed more jealousy over emotional

infidelity and dismissing men showed more jealousy over sexual infidelity. This shows the

differences in development and how the Attachment Theory is a foundation to certain thought

processes even as an adult.

In my CAS class, we had a discussion the other way about how men and women always

think differently. In class, we talked about how women tend to think more sensitively and put

their emotions into their thoughts and men tend to have more of a “just do it” attitude. This

correlates to the main thesis of this study by showing how differently men and women think. The

thesis of this study was that men showed more signs of jealousy about sexual infidelity and

women showed more signs of jealousy about emotional infidelity. This relates to what we were

talking about in my CAS class on how women tend to include their emotions more than men.

I thought this study was very interesting on how their were many points linked to types of

jealousy. First, I figured there would be a difference in jealousy between men and women, but, I

did not think that it would be that much of a gap of how many more men were more jealous over

sexual infidelity. I would’ve thought that the data would be more equal about sexual infidelity

over emotional infidelity. Also, I thought it was very interesting how the different types of

attachment played a role in the results. It makes sense how more dismissing attachments were

more jealous over sexual infidelity than for the secure attachments. I also found it interesting

how more men are likely to grow up with dismissing attachment. But, I did not think that women

would be more likely to develop fearful avoidant attachment because that is when people are

afraid and stay away from relationships. I would think that men would develop fearful avoidant
attachment more than women would because I feel that women want relationships and don’t run

away from them like men do.