What constitutes an act of infidelity depends upon the exclusivity expectations within the relationship. In marital relationships, exclusivity expectations are commonly assumed, although they are not always met. One measure of infidelity among couples is the frequency of children secretly conceived with a different partner, leading to “non-paternities”. After the Kinsey Reports came out in the early 1950s, findings suggested that historically and cross-culturally, extramarital sex has been a european dating apps of regulation more than sex before marriage.
Rates of infidelity among women are thought to increase with age. Differences in sexual infidelity as a function of gender have been commonly reported. It is more common for men compared to women to engage in extradyadic relationships. A study published in 2002 suggested there may be sex differences in jealousy. A common way to test whether an innate jealousy response exists between sexes is to use a forced-choice questionnaire. This style of questionnaire asks participants “yes or no” and “response A or response B” style questions about certain scenarios. Although forced-choice questionnaires show a statistically significant sex-difference, critics of the theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy question these findings.
In consideration of the entire body of work on sex differences, C. Harris asserted that when methods other than forced-choice questionnaires are used to identify an innate sex difference, inconsistencies between studies begin to arise. In her meta-analysis, Harris raises the question of whether forced choice questionnaires actually measure what they purport: jealousy itself and evidence that differences in jealousy arise from innate mechanisms. Her meta-analysis reveals that sex-differences are almost exclusively found in forced-choice studies. These inconsistent results have led researchers to propose novel theories that attempt to explain the sex differences observed in certain studies.
One theory that has been hypothesized to explain why men and women both report more distress to emotional infidelity than sexual infidelity is borrowed from childhood attachment theories. A 2015 study found a correlation between AVPR1A expression and predisposition to extrapair mating in women but not in men. Evolutionary researchers have suggested that men and women have innate mechanisms that contribute to why they become sexually jealous, especially for certain types of infidelity. 210 individuals: 48 homosexual women, 50 homosexual men, 40 heterosexual women, and 49 heterosexual men. Heterosexuals rated emotional and sexual infidelity as more emotionally distressing than did lesbian and gay individuals.
Sex and sexual orientation differences emerged regarding the degree to which specific emotions were reported in response to sexual and emotional infidelity. Few researchers have explored the influence of sexual orientation on which type of infidelity is viewed as more distressing. Summarizing the findings from these studies, heterosexual men seem to be more distressed by sexual infidelity than heterosexual women, lesbian women, and gay men. These latter three groups seem more responsible for this difference by reporting similarly higher levels of distress toward emotional infidelity than heterosexual men.
