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Relationship jealousy and its relation to emotional attachment and sexuality
Sanja Temnik
Full text (pdf) | Views: 29 | Written in Slovene. | Published: January 30, 2007
Abstract: The research objective was to study the emotion of relationship jealousy in context of emotional attachment and sexuality. Two main theories that try to explain the nature of this complex emotional state are the evolutionary paradigm and the so-called "double-shot" hypothesis. According to evolutionary psychologists, jealousy is an evolved adaptation, activated by threats to a valuable relationship, functioning to protect it from partial or total loss. The "double-shot" hypothesis on the other hand emphasises the importance of different beliefs men and women hold about emotional vs. sexual infidelity. Slovenian data suggests that (a) emotional infidelity is the primary jealousy trigger in both sexes; (b) jealousy is influenced by the socio-cultural context (the degree of sexual permissiveness and sex role egalitarity seem to be of special importance), but not by characteristics of the individuals` early life situation; (c) marital status influences the tendency towards sexual or emotional jealousy in romantic relationships; (d) this tendency also depends on whether the individual comes from a rural or urban environment. Because the results seem to be affected by the linguistic formulation of jealousy and each infidelity type, special attention should be directed towards a precise conceptualisation of these terms. Beliefs about the typical relationship between the emotional and sexual aspect of human relations as well as participants` self-reports indicate that men find it a lot easier to separate both types of attachment than women. In Slovenia, the degree of sexual permissiveness as well as the degree of sex role egalitarity seem to be relatively high and comparable to certain other European countries. The results support the so-called "double-shot" hypothesis, but not the evolutionary theory of jealousy as a sex-specific innate module.
Keywords: jealousy, romantic relationships, infidelity, attachment behavior, sexuality, evolutionary paradigm, double-shot hypothesis
