I’m just going to throw this quote out there from a Scientific American article that I just read:
Studies from around the world have reported that men are more jealous of sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. And women are the opposite—they’re more jealous of emotional cheating than sexual cheating. Experts often lean on an evolutionary cause for this gender difference: men can never be sure they are the baby-daddy and women are most concerned with securing a genuinely loyal father to care for the children.
Well, authors of a recent study in Psychological Science question the strength of the evolutionary just-so theory—realizing that there are men who find emotional cheating far worse than sexual cheating. The study reports that personality patterns, shaped by one’s relationship history, can have an impact on jealousy.
I can’t tell you how many people, usually men, frankly… have used this “evolutionary evidence” to justify their own jealousy or to illuminate differences between the emotional states of men and women. It’s nice to hear a reasonable voice out there saying “be careful”… saying “ask the right questions.”
Article and podcast at Scientific American online.
