How contingencies of self-worth influence reactions to emotional and sexual infidelity.
How do men and women interpret the meaning of sexual infidelities? Is it different from the way they interpret emotional infidelities? People make different attributions regarding infidelity depending on their self-worth. The influence of this intrapsychic factor on reactions to infidelity deserves greater study. Some people will construe infidelity as evidence of their partners' lack of trustworthiness. Others might attribute infidelity to situational factors beyond anyone's control, and avoid blaming their partners altogether. However, if one's sense of self-worth is highly contingent on external sources their attributions may change. In these cases, one may interpret infidelity to mean that others find him or her undesirable and unlovable. In the present study, we sought to investigate how self-worth might influence reactions to sexual versus emotional infidelity using the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS) and the Buss Jealousy Instrument. A chi square analysis was used to determine whether reactions to infidelity depended on sex and Hotelling's T-square test was used to determine whether CSWS domains were dependent on sex. Binomial logistic regressions were conducted to assess between-sex and within-sex differences in reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity. There was no significant difference between men's and women's reactions to sexual versus emotional infidelity. Greater distress associated with sexual infidelity was found in men whose self-worth was contingent on competition, but this difference was not found in women. Clinicians may benefit from an awareness of how intrapsychic factors influence clients' reactions to infidelity.KEY WORDS: Contingent self-worth, emotional infidelity, infidelity, jealousy, sexual infidelity
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How do men and women interpret the meaning of sexual and emotional infidelities? Reactions to infidelity have long been a source of interest among academic researchers. Research in this area has grown in part because admissions of infidelity are common during the course of couples therapy, and can be challenging for clinicians to address (Dupree, White, Olsen, & Lafleur, 2007). Scholars in this area often make a distinction between two forms of infidelity: sexual and emotional (e.g., Glass & Wright, 1992; Salovey & Rothman, 1991). Sexual infidelity involves sexual activity with an extra-dyadic partner, while emotional infidelity involves the diversion of romantic love, time, and attention toward someone outside of the relationship. In both cases, the underlying emotional contract between partners must be violated for infidelity to have occurred (i.e., the relationship is expected to be monogamous rather than consensually non-monogamous). The focus of this study is to identify whether the intrapsychic factor, Contingent Self-Worth (CSW), causes individuals to feel more distress from one of these two types of infidelity.
Infidelity is one of the most commonly cited causes of divorce (Betzig, 1989; Scott, Rhoades, Stanley, Allen, & Markman, 2013), though it is important to note that both divorce and infidelity per se are often caused by underlying relationship dissatisfaction (Buss & Shackelford, 1997; Previti & Amato, 2004). Other factors such as low Conscientiousness and high Narcissism have also been implicated as potential causes of infidelity (Buss & Shackelford, 1997). Given the role of infidelity in divorce, a comprehensive understanding of how people react to infidelity may have significant social import. This is especially true given that male sexual jealousy is the leading proximate cause of spouse battering and homicide across cultures worldwide (Wilson & Daly, 1998).
Initial interest in the distinction between sexual and emotional infidelity was spurred by Buss and his colleagues who found that women tend to be more distressed by emotional infidelities, while men tend to be relatively more distressed by sexual infidelities (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992). Buss et al. (1992) hypothesized that this sex difference originated in evolutionary strategies that allow men to maximize paternal certainty by preventing cuckoldry, and allow women to ensure higher male investments in their offspring. Other authors have since attributed the same findings to a wide variety of sociocultural factors including gendered expectations (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996), cultural norms (Hupka & Bank, 1996), and social structures (Hupka & Ryan, 1990).
As Treger and Sprecher (2011) have noted, relatively less attention has been given to how intrapsychic factors might influence jealousy or distress in the face of sexual versus emotional infidelity. Studying intrapsychic factors (e.g., self-efficacy, attachment style, personality traits) is important because such factors can explain more than just the between-sex effects first described by Buss and his colleagues. By placing only limited attention on intrapsychic variables, the literature to date has simply offered an increasingly greater variety of explanations for robust between-sex effects, while generally ignoring within-sex variation. Indeed, the evolutionary model proposed by Buss offers no explanation of within-sex differences at all (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996). Therefore, the present study contributes to the literature by investigating within-sex variation.
There have been at least a few studies which have sought to investigate the influence of intrapsychic factors on both between-sex and within-sex effects. For instance, Cann, Mangum, and Wells (2001) have found an association between distress associated with emotional infidelity and both the belief that sex is a means to achieve personal pleasure and the endorsement of idealized romantic beliefs. In the same study, distress in the face of sexual infidelity was associated with the belief that sex is an important form of intimate communication. Miller and Maner (2009) have found that predicted sex differences are greater for individuals with chronic, as opposed to non-chronic, jealousy. Further, Treger and Sprecher (2011) have demonstrated that higher sociosexuality (i.e., more permissive sexual attitudes and behaviours) is linked with greater distress related to sexual infidelity for both men and women. Other studies have also explored the relationship between attachment styles and reactions to infidelity (Levy & Kelly, 2010; Treger & Sprecher, 2011).
It has long been known that another intrapsychic variable, self-esteem, also plays an important role in jealousy. Bryson (1977) and White (1981) have argued that jealousy can be characterized according to two independent, motivational goals: a desire to maintain one's relationship, and a desire to maintain self-esteem (Table 1; see also Guerrero & Afifi, 1998). The former desire has been addressed by recent work based on attachment theory (Levy & Kelly, 2010; Treger & Sprecher, 2011). Attachment theory is broadly concerned with how a person's fear of abandonment and/or desire to avoid intimacy can influence his or her emotions and behaviour (Fraley, Hudson, Heffernan, & Segal, 2015). While attachment theory still considers the role of self-esteem (e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), this study is more narrowly focused on how the desire to maintain self-esteem can influence experiences of jealousy as described by Bryson (1977). Furthermore, this study expands prior research by attending to the particular areas on which an individual's self-esteem has been staked.
Self-esteem can influence the way individuals make attributions, and these attributions can influence the way jealousy is experienced within a romantic relationship (e.g., Bauerle, Amirkhan, & Hupka, 2002; Thibaut & Kelley, 1986). Self-esteem threats are abundant in jealousy-provoking scenarios because individuals must ascertain the psychological meaning of their partners' perceived attraction to rivals, and may suffer the consequence of social comparisons to the rivals (White & Mullen, 1989). In this quest to understand the meaning of an infidelity, attributions regarding what caused the infidelity to occur must be made. Some may construe the psychological meaning of an infidelity to be tangible proof of their partners' lack of trustworthiness (Baucom, Snyder, & Coop Gordon, 2011). Others may attribute the cause of an infidelity to situational factors beyond anyone's immediate control (e.g., believing that they are incompatible with their partners). More tragically, if an individual's self-esteem is fragile, unstable, or highly contingent on external sources he or she may interpret infidelity differently. Namely, this person may interpret infidelity as evidence that he or she is undesirable or unworthy of love (e.g., Buunk, 1984). In line with this idea, both individuals with negative self-esteem and contingent feelings of self-worth are known to react especially strongly to the discovery of an infidelity (Guerrero & Afifi, 1998; Zeigler-Hill, Besser, & King, 2011). Therefore, it is important to consider the contribution of self-worth to feelings of jealousy and reactions to infidelity.
The present investigation centers on how the intrapsychic factor, CSW, affects men's and women's reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity. Whereas self-esteem and self-worth are referred to interchangeably within this study (see Crocker et al., 2003; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001), CSW refers to how an individual's self-esteem can be dependent on external factors, such as the approval of others. In other words, a highly contingent sense of self-worth (i.e., high CSW) is indicative of unstable, or fragile self-esteem (Kernis, 2003). In this study, CSW is operationalized by the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS) developed by Crocker et al. (2003). The CSWS measures self-worth contingencies with respect to seven domains: academics, appearance, competition, family support, God's love, others' approval, and virtue. So far, researchers studying CSW have found that it influences sexual dissatisfaction and inhibition (Sanchez, Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Crocker, 2011), sexual pleasure (Sanchez, Crocker, & Boike, 2005), body image concerns and eating disturbances (Bailey & Ricciardelli, 2010; Grossbard, Lee, Neighbors, & Larimer, 2009; Overstreet & Quinn, 2012; Zeigler-Hill & Noser, 2015), and self-perceived physical attractiveness (Patrick, Neighbors, & Knee, 2004). Furthermore, it is known that high CSW is related to higher distress in the face of sexual infidelities (Zeigler-Hill et al., 2011), but the association between specific CSW domains and distress associated with emotional or sexual infidelity has not been investigated by many authors.
The particular domain in which self-worth comparisons are made is of interest to researchers studying distress related to infidelity and to jealousy more broadly. For instance, Tesser (1988) has argued that people are sensitive to threats in salient performance domains because they seek to maintain their own self-esteem. Similarly, jealousy can be especially strong when a potential rival possesses strengths on a self-relevant domain (Salovey & Rodin, 1984). This kind of domain-specific ego threat "hits us where we live" by specifically targeting aspects of ourselves that we value most strongly (Salovey & Rodin, 1983). Based on these theoretical premises, one can speculate regarding whether emotional and sexual infidelities might "hit" us in different places. For example, a partner's sexual infidelity might invoke a preoccupation over whether the partner has attempted unique sexual positions with the rival (Buss et al., 1999), or whether a rival has superior skills in the bedroom. Thus, sexual infidelities may be associated with threats to the "competition" CSWS domain. Similarly, an emotional infidelity may leave us wondering why our partners like and approve of our rivals, threatening the "others' approval" CSWS domain.
There are other reasons for believing that sexual and emotional infidelity might have unique relationships with self-worth. Within the literature on the psychology of jealousy, a distinction has emerged between fait accompli jealousy and suspicious jealousy (Parrott, 1991). Individuals who experience fait accompli jealousy are certain that a jealousy-provoking act has occurred, such as an infidelity. In contrast, individuals who experience suspicious jealousy merely suspect that a jealousy-provoking act has occurred. Three major emotional hallmarks of suspicious jealousy are feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and "an oversensitivity to sleights or hints of dissatisfaction from the partner" (Parrott, 1991, p. 19). Similar to suspicious jealousy, feelings of inadequacy and anxiety are especially common reactions to emotional infidelities in particular (Shackelford, LeBlanc, & Drass, 2000). Thus, individuals who have a more vulnerable sense of self-worth may be more sensitive to the threats posed by emotional infidelities, because they evoke especially strong feelings of inadequacy. Similarly, emotional infidelities may be particularly likely to generate suspicious jealousy because of their inherently intangible or immaterial nature. This suspicious jealousy is, in turn, associated with feelings of inadequacy and thus with even greater distress related to emotional infidelity. Hence, it is possible that high scores on one or more CSW domains will predict a greater likelihood for either men or women to be more distressed by emotional infidelity than by sexual infidelity (particularly CSW domains strongly related to feelings of inadequacy, such as others' approval).
This is the second study to investigate CSW in the context of emotional versus sexual infidelity. The first such study was performed by Goldenberg and her colleagues (2003). These authors found that men, on average, report having a self-worth that is more highly contingent on satisfaction in their sex lives, while women have a self-worth that is more contingent on romantic commitment. By using an experimental procedure, these authors were able to manipulate sex-specific self-esteem strivings and found support for the view that self-worth contingencies can be significant causal factors in provoking jealousy. Here, we extend Goldenberg et al.'s findings by exploring both between-sex and within-sex effects using a greater variety of self-worth contingencies (seven in total).
The present literature on CSW and reactions to infidelity are largely independent of each other, and it is thus not possible to make reliable predictions regarding the relationships between these two variables. Nevertheless, these relationships are important to explore and this study is among the first to delve into possible interrelationships that might exist between CSW and reactions to infidelity. Due to the variety of different relationships that are possible, research questions will be adopted rather than hypotheses. Bonferroni adjustments will be used to control for Type 1 error. Formulating hypotheses would involve making a priori assumptions that cannot be substantiated due to the paucity of studies in this research area. On this basis, the following two research questions are adopted:
1. Do specific CSW domains predict that a particular type of infidelity will be perceived as especially distressing?
2. If multiple CSW domains are predictive of distress related to a particular type of infidelity, what is the joint influence of these multiple CSW domains?
In this study, we will explore both within-sex and between-sex differences. Therefore, we will analyze differences found among men, among women; and between men and women.
Information regarding how CSW might influence reactions to infidelity is relevant to efforts aimed at addressing societal issues. Given that male sexual jealousy is the leading proximate cause of spousal battery and homicide worldwide (Wilson & Daly, 1998), any policy or program intended to reduce the prevalence of these crimes should consider the causal factors that underlie jealousy. These factors must be identified correctly, and the degree to which they are controllable versus uncontrollable must be ascertained. If the factors that influence male sexual jealousy are uncontrollable or misidentified, then the implementation of any intervention will be in vain. While the final resolution to such questions is outside the scope of this study, the evidence provided herein contributes to this broader goal.
Similarly, the influence of CSW on reactions to infidelity may be relevant to clinicians. Understanding the unique influence of different CSW domains on reactions to infidelity may help clarify the origin of the jealousy clients experience as they process the meaning of an infidelity. Prior models of jealousy have emphasized evolutionary and sociocultural influences, but relatively less attention has been given to how individual differences might influence reactions to infidelity. Thus, this study will provide a unique contribution by considering the role of an important, understudied variable.
METHOD
Participants
There were 350 females (59%) and 233 males (41%) in the sample. The mean age of the sample was 26, with a standard deviation of 8.5. The sample was 82.7% White (n = 484), 5.6% Asian (n = 33), 3.2% Mixed (n = 19), 2.9% Latino (n = 17), 1.9% Middle Eastern (n = 11), 1.2% Black (n = 7), 0.9% Native American (n = 5), and 1.5% "Other" (n = 9). Most participants were born (n = 439; 75.0%) and raised (n = 456; 77.9%) in either Canada or the United States, however a diverse array of 40 other countries were also represented. A minority of participants considered themselves to be religious (n = 171; 29.2%). The sample was predominantly heterosexual (n = 402; 68.7%) though gay or bisexual men (n = 49; 8.4%), lesbian or bisexual women (n = 104; 17.8%), and other sexually diverse participants were recruited (n = 27; 4.6%). A large majority of participants had been involved in a committed relationship at some point in their lives (n = 521; 89.1%). A majority were also involved in a committed relationship at the time the survey was administered (n = 318; 54.4%).
Measures
Demographic information. Biological sex (male, female, or other), gender identity (male, female, or other), and sexual orientation (heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or other) were obtained by self-report. If participants selected "other," they had the option of providing their own response. Age and ethnicity were also obtained by self-report. Sex was used as an independent variable.
Reactions to infidelity. The dependent variable of the study, reactions to infidelity, was assessed by a one-item measure taken from the Buss Jealousy Inventory (BJI; Buss et al., 1999). This particular item has been used to assess reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity in several prior studies (e.g., Levy & Kelly, 2010; Treger & Sprecher, 2011), though its psychometric validity has not been formally established. It should be noted that the item assesses imagined reactions to infidelity, as opposed to in vivo reactions. Despite this, it has been shown to predict how men and women respond to actual infidelities, indicating strong prospective validity (Edlund, Heider, Scherer, Fare, & Sagarin, 2006). The dichotomous item poses the following question to participants:
Please think of a serious or committed romantic relationship that you have had in the past, that you are currently having, or that you would like to have. Imagine that you discover that the person with whom you've been seriously involved became interested in someone else. Which would distress or upset you more?
Participants were then provided with two options they could select:
1. Imagining your partner enjoying passionate sexual intercourse with that other person.
2. Imagining your partner forming a deep emotional attachment to that other person.
The reactions to infidelity variable was artificially dichotomous, with more distress related to sexual infidelity given a score of 1, and more distress related to emotional infidelity given a score of 0.
Seven BJI items measuring reactions to infidelity were excluded from the statistical analyses, as Buss et al. (1999) had not intended for these items to be used to improve the internal reliability of the questionnaire, but rather to be used to address separate theoretical questions which were not relevant to this study. For example, some items ask whether participants would be more willing to forgive their partner for a sexual infidelity, or for an emotional infidelity. Fourteen BJI items measuring social expectations were also excluded from the statistical analyses, as the double-shot hypothesis does not alter interpretations of the data. Data obtained using these items is available from the authors upon request.
Contingencies of self-worth. Self-worth contingencies were assessed using the popular Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS) developed by Crocker et al. (2003). This instrument was chosen because it is the only empirically validated measure of self-worth contingencies which includes specific CSW domains, as opposed to other psychometric tests which measure global CSW. Six independent variables were assessed by the CSWS, corresponding to each of six self-worth contingencies: academics, appearance, competition, family support, others' approval, and virtue. Each subscale of the CSWS includes 5 items. Due to the low variance in religiosity within the sample, the God's love domain of the CSWS was excluded from the statistical analyses. Each self-worth contingency was evaluated by self-report on a 7-point Likert-type scale.
The domain structure of the CSWS was discovered through an exploratory factor analysis, and refined following confirmatory factor analysis (Crocker et al., 2003). Each domain subscale of the CSWS has demonstrated high internal reliability, with Cronbach [alpha] values ranging from 0.82 to 0.96 (Crocker et al, 2003). In our sample, the academic ([alpha] = 0.87), appearance ([alpha] = 0.84), competition ([alpha] = 0.89), family's support ([alpha] = 0.86), others' approval ([alpha] = 0.85), and virtue domains ([alpha] = 0.90) all had Cronbach's alpha values greater than 0.8. The academics, appearance, and others' approval domains have strong prospective validity, though other domains have not yet been tested for prospective validity (Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002; Overstreet & Quinn, 2012; Park & Crocker, 2008). Further, the scale does not appear to be vulnerable to social desirability and other self-presentational concerns (Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Luhtanen & Crocker, 2005).
Procedure
A community sample of 585 adults (aged 18 to 70) were recruited using social media (e.g., Facebook.com) and from university classrooms. Upon obtaining consent from interested individuals, participants were able to complete a 10-15 minute survey on their computers. The survey was uploaded to the Internet using the survey hosting website, www.surveymonkey.com. Each participant received information about the research and was instructed to answer the questions asked in the survey. This study was approved by a Research Ethics Board (REB).
Analyses
A differential research design was employed to detect the relationships among biological sex, reactions to infidelity, and each domain of the CSWS. Reactions to infidelity were treated as a dependent variable, while sex and CSW domains were treated as independent variables. A chi square analysis was used to determine whether reactions to infidelity depended on sex. This test was followed up by a binomial logistic regression, with reactions to infidelity as the dependent variable and sex as the independent variable. A Hotelling's T-square test was conducted to detect whether CSW scores were different between men and women, with independent samples t-tests performed on each separate CSW domain. Hotelling's T-square test was used to test for a multivariate effect across all CSW domains, while independent samples t-tests were used to assess univariate effects across individual CSW domains. For all between-sex analyses in the study, participants who identified as having a biological sex other than male or female (n = 2) were excluded to ensure all analyses had an appropriate level of statistical power.
Three series of binomial logistic regressions were performed to determine the relationships between CSW domains and reactions to infidelity in men and women, men only, and women only. For each of these three samples, binomial logistic regressions were performed separately for each individual CSW domain (i.e., to address research question 1). In the event that multiple CSW domains were significant, an additional binomial logistic regression would be performed on all of the significant CSW domains jointly (i.e., to address research question 2). In the event that multiple CSW domains had a significant influence on reactions to infidelity, a multivariate binomial logistic regression would be performed with respect to those domains (addressing research question 2). Given the exploratory nature of the study, independent Bonferroni corrections were applied to each of the three series of logistic regressions (for the men only sample, the women only sample, and the combined sample).
None of the participants had missing data, as the completion of every question was required for the survey to be submitted. Thirteen participants reported that they were under the age of 18 and their data were excluded from the analyses.
RESULTS
Chi Square Analyses: Sex and Reactions to Infidelity
A chi-square test for association was conducted between sex and distress from emotional versus sexual infidelity. All expected cell frequencies were greater than five. While 36% of men perceived sexual infidelities as more distressing than emotional infidelities, 29% of females indicated the same. The reverse was true among those who perceived emotional infidelities as more distressing than sexual infidelities, with 64% of males and 71% of females belonging to this category. There were no significant differences between how men and women reacted to infidelity, [chi square] (1) = 3.62, p = 0.057, [phi] = 0.079. However, when lesbian, gay, and bisexual participants were removed from the analysis, a significant sex difference emerged, [chi square] (1) = 7.36, p = 0.007, [phi] = 0.135.
Hotelling's T-square Test and Independent Samples t-Tests: Sex and Contingencies of Self-Worth
Hotelling's T-square test was conducted between sex and six CSWS domains: academics, appearance, competition, family's support, others' approval, and virtue. The assumptions of a Hotelling's T-square test were assessed, including homogeneity of variances, univariate and multivariate outliers, normality, multicollinearity, and homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices. The appearance and virtue CSW domains initially failed Levene's Test of Homogeneity of Variance (p > 0.05). Following logarithmic transformation of these two variables, the homogeneity of variances assumption was satisfied. There were no univariate outliers among any of the CSW domains. However, there were seven multivariate outliers, as assessed by Mahalanobis distance (p > 0.001). These cases were removed from the analysis. None of the six CSW domains was normally distributed as assessed by skewness and kurtosis z-scores of 2, however the data were not transformed as Hotelling's T-square test is robust to violations of normality. There was no multicollinearity, as assessed by Pearson correlation (r < [absolute value of 0.8]). There was homogeneity of variance-covariances matrices, as assessed by Box's test of equality of covariance matrices (p = 0.195). The results of the Hotelling's T-square test indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the sexes on the combined dependent variables, F(7, 568) = 11.920, p < 0.0005; Wilks' A = 0.872; partial [[eta].sup.2] ~ 0.128. This difference remained significant after reanalyzing the data with the multivariate outliers included.
Follow-up independent samples f-tests were performed. All other assumptions related to the independent samples t-test were tested before the Hotelling's T-square test. The same decisions made for that test were applied to the t-tests: No univariate outliers were removed, and variables were not transformed to account for violations of normality. Independent t-tests performed on groups with large sample sizes and similar distributions (as was the case in this study) are considered robust. The violation of these assumptions generally does not affect Type I error rate substantially. The independent samples t-tests indicated that women had higher CSW scores than men on five CSW domains: appearance, academics, family's support, others' approval, and virtue (Table 2).
Binomial Logistic Regressions: Sex, Contingencies of Self-Worth, and Reactions to Infidelity
Three series of binomial logistic regressions were performed. For each series of regressions, linearity of the continuous variables was assessed via the Box-Tidwell (1962) procedure. All continuous independent variables were found to be linearly related to the logit of the dependent variable, following a Bonferroni correction (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2016). There were no outliers in the combined and male-only samples, and 1 outlier in the female-only sample, as indicated by studentized residuals greater than 2.5. The outlier was excluded from the analyses.
A series of seven logistic regression analyses were conducted on men and women to test whether sex and the six contingencies of self-worth can predict distress in the face of infidelity. Given that sexual infidelity was coded with a value of 1, all of the regression models predict whether sexual infidelity is selected as most distressing. Odds Ratios (OR) were computed to determine effect sizes. No significant relationship was found between sex and reactions to infidelity. Furthermore, no significant relationship was found between any of the six self-worth contingencies and reactions to infidelity.
A second series of six logistic regression analyses were conducted on men to identify which of the six contingencies of self-worth might influence within-sex differences in distress from infidelity (Table 3). Men whose self-worth was highly contingent on competition had 1.59 times higher odds of perceiving sexual infidelity as more distressing than emotional infidelity, [chi square] (1) = 10.977, OR = 1.590, p = 0.002. The model correctly classified 68.2% of cases, had a positive predictive value of 67.8%, and a negative predictive value of 72.8%. No significant relationship was found between any of the other 5 self-worth contingencies and reactions to infidelity, following a Bonferroni adjustment (Table 3).
A final series of six logistic regression analyses were performed on women to identify CSW domains that predict within-sex differences in which type of infidelity is perceived as most distressing. No significant relationship was found between any of the six self-worth contingencies and reactions to infidelity. These relationships remained non-significant after reanalyzing the data with the outlier case included. CSW domain scores for men and women (based on the type of infidelity they find most distressing) are illustrated in Figure 1.
DISCUSSION
The primary aim of this study was to extend existing research by considering how intrapsychic differences in self-worth contingencies might contribute to both between-sex and within-sex variation in reactions to a partner's infidelity. Overall, the data did not show any between-sex differences in the way people react to different types of infidelity, challenging current evolutionary and sociocultural models of jealousy. There was also no evidence to support the notion that contingencies of self-worth can be used to explain between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity. Furthermore, there was no evidence to suggest that within-sex variation in reactions to infidelity among women was related to any of the contingencies of self-worth measured by the CSWS. Self-worth contingent on competition was associated with significantly greater distress from sexual infidelities among men. However, the influence of each of the other contingencies of self-worth was not significant among men.
Sex and Reactions to Infidelity
Reactions to infidelity did not depend on sex, as assessed by both a binomial logistic regression and a chi square analysis. Most both men (64%) and women (71%) were more likely to find emotional infidelities more distressing than sexual infidelities. These data contrast with the often cited results reported by Buss et al. (1992) which showed that a minority of men (40%) and most women (83%) found emotional infidelities particularly distressing. This likely occurred due to the high proportion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexually diverse participants in the current sample. Prior research has shown that gay, lesbian, and bisexual participants tend to be more greatly distressed by emotional infidelity than by sexual infidelity (Djikstra et al., 2001; Frederick & Fales, 2016; Sheets & Wolfe, 2001). Furthermore, when sexually diverse participants were excluded from the sample, a significant difference between sex and reactions to infidelity emerged. This indicates that the sex differences reported by Buss are apparent only among heterosexuals in our sample, consistent with prior research (Frederick & Fales, 2016).
Sex and CSW
Our results suggest that sex had a significant influence across all CSW domains jointly, though the size of the effect was small. Follow-up tests indicated that, relative to men, women reported that their self-worth was more highly contingent on academics, appearance, family's support, others' approval, and virtue. There was no significant sex difference in whether participants staked their self-worth on competition. The sex difference for the academics domain had a medium effect size, while the effect size for each of the other domains was small (Cohen, 1988). This result is consistent with other work in this area, and the literature relating to societal issues surrounding gender more broadly (cf. Crocker et al., 2003; Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999). Generally, sex differences on self-esteem measures are small but reliable (Kling et al., 1999).
It is possible that CSW scores may explain between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity. If that is the case, between-sex differences in CSW scores (discussed in the above paragraph) should be aligned with between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity (discussed in the previous section). Thus, women may be more distressed by emotional infidelities because their self-worth is more contingent on one of the five domains for which sex differences on CSW scores have been demonstrated. For example, a woman whose self-worth is especially contingent on appearance should be highly likely to be distressed by emotional infidelities, if we believe that CSW scores can explain between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity. Similarly, women whose self-worth is especially contingent on academics, appearance, family's support, others' approval, or virtue should also be highly likely to be distressed by emotional infidelities. However, the data did not provide empirical support for any of these relationships. Therefore, we cannot support the conclusion that CSW scores mediate between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity.
CSW and Reactions to Infidelity
Beyond attempting to explain between-sex differences in reactions to infidelity, this study also explored the contribution of CSW to within-sex differences. Within-sex variation in reactions to infidelity among women was not related to any of the CSW domains we explored. In men, self-worth contingent on competition was associated with higher distress from sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. However, none of the other CSW domains had a significant relationship with reactions to infidelity among men.
There was one statistically significant conclusion of the study, though the size of the effect was small (OR = 1.590; Chinn, 2000). In men specifically, self-worth contingent on competition was associated with higher distress related to sexual infidelity as opposed to emotional infidelity. Why might this be? One possible explanation is that men whose self-worth is highly contingent on competition may conform more strongly to stereotypical gender roles, given that stereotypical masculinity is associated with competitiveness (Doyle, 1983; Helgeson, 2016). Male gender role conformity is, in turn, known to be associated with increased distress in the face of sexual infidelity (Hupka & Bank, 1996). Thus, sex differences in reactions to sexual versus emotional infidelity may reflect differences in people's adherence to gender roles, and may vary cross-culturally because prescribed gender roles are not universal. The results of our study can be interpreted as offering support for this hypothesis, however there exist alternative interpretations of the data.
The gender role hypothesis is partially supported by evidence that reactions to infidelity change based on cross-cultural variation. Initial studies suggested that sex differences in sexual versus emotional jealousy in Korea, Japan, and Sweden are of a similar magnitude as those reported in the United States (Buss et al., 1999; Wiederman & Kendall, 1999). However, other researchers have reported that the sex differences found in the United States are larger than in Germany, the Netherlands, and China (Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, & Buss, 1996; Geary, Rumsey, Bow-Thomas, & Hoard, 1995). A recent meta-analysis has shown that only the United States shows the sex difference predicted by the evolutionary model (Carpenter, 2012).
An alternative to the gender-based explanation is that jealousy related to sexual infidelities in men has to do with feeling that one's sexual rival is superior, whether in the bedroom or otherwise. From this perspective CSW is implicated more directly, rather than gender being the cause of differences. For instance, competitive men may feel especially threatened by their rivals' sexual prowess and may be especially vulnerable to feeling distress in the face of a sexual infidelity. In this way, male jealousy related to sexual infidelities may also be associated with hierarchical relationships, since hierarchies promote competition. This indicates that societal factors, such as the degree to which a society is hierarchical or unequal, may play a role in male sexual jealousy. This is consistent with other research in the field. For example, social structures are known to influence reactions to infidelity, but only among men (Hupka & Ryan, 1990). Moreover, male jealousy is known to be influenced by the rival's dominance, but this has not been shown in women (Dijkstra & Buunk, 1998). Therefore, competition appears to be a particularly salient factor underlying sex-differentiated jealousy.
Nonsignificant Results
The fact that most of the relationships between CSW and reactions to infidelity were nonsignificant is notable. For example, it was expected that high CSW scores in one or more domains would be associated with more distress from emotional infidelities than sexual infidelities. This expectation was based in part on the fact that emotional infidelities are more likely to provoke feelings of inadequacy than sexual infidelities (Shackelford, LeBlanc, & Drass, 2000), and because emotional infidelities may be more likely to provoke suspicious jealousy, which generally involves especially strong feelings of inadequacy (Parrott, 1991). However, high CSW domain scores were not related to greater distress from emotional infidelity than from sexual infidelity. This was true for all six of the CSW domains tested.
To help explain why this might be, we turn back to Bryson (1977) who postulated that there are two independent motivational systems that underlie jealousy. As previously discussed, one of these systems was self-esteem maintenance, and the other was relationship maintenance (Table 1). It may be that the especially strong feelings of inadequacy associated with emotional infidelities are linked only to relationship maintenance striving and variables such as attachment style or feelings of insecurity, and are unrelated to the self-esteem maintenance system which involves feelings of personal worthiness. Treger and Sprecher (2011) have provided evidence that greater distress related to emotional infidelities (as opposed to sexual infidelities) is associated with anxious-preoccupied attachment styles among men. This evidence may support the notion that heightened distress related to emotional infidelities is linked to relationship maintenance needs (e.g., fear of abandonment) more than to self-esteem maintenance needs. This notion is further corroborated by Sheets & Wolfe (2001) who concluded that fear of abandonment contributed most to distress from sexual versus emotional infidelity, as compared to six other variables (though these authors did not consider self-esteem). Future studies should investigate trait self-worth to further explore the role of self-esteem maintenance in mediating reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity.
Strengths and Limitations
The methodology employed in this study has several limitations. One limitation is that the sample included mainly white, young adults from North America and may not be broadly representative of all populations (see Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). A second limitation is that the Buss Jealousy Inventory measures reactions to imagined infidelity, which may not be the same as actual or in vivo reactions to infidelity (Harris, 2003). As Wilson, Gilbert and their colleagues have shown, humans are often quite poor at predicting their future emotional states (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). However, items on the Buss Jealousy Inventory are an exception to this rule, as they have been shown to accurately predict how men and women respond to actual infidelities in both student and non-student samples (Edlund, Heider, Scherer, Fare, & Sagarin, 2006). A third limitation of the Buss Jealousy Inventory is that it does not ask participants about whether they have previously experienced infidelity or the length of their prior relationships. Future studies on infidelity and jealousy should consider collecting this information.
The BJI also uses unidimensional, forced-choice items rather than continuous, bidimensional items (e.g., Likert-type items). These items make it impossible for participants to answer that they experience the same degree of jealousy in the face of both sexual and emotional infidelity. Further, the scale does not attempt to quantify the intensity of the jealousy experienced. Therefore, individuals who experience compersion (i.e., positive emotional reactions to infidelity) are not differentiated from individuals who experience intense jealousy. However, these limitations are not relevant to the research questions adopted in this study. The goal of this study was to determine which type of infidelity participants would find more distressing, rather than whether they are distressed by both types of infidelity or not. Zeigler-Hill, et al. (2011) have already shown that individuals with highly contingent self-esteem experience greater distress from infidelity.
Continuous scales are neither more valid nor more reliable than dichotomous measures of jealousy. Edlund & Sagarin (2009) have demonstrated that continuous items obtain results that are similar to dichotomous items when extended scales are used (e.g., 9-point Likert-type scales, rather than 5-point scales), scale end points are labelled, midpoints are not labelled, and extremely is used as the upper anchor label. As Edlund & Sagarin (2009) have argued, the continuous scales that meet these criteria are more reliable (Alwin & Krosnick, 1991; Edlund & Sagarin, 2009; Weems, 2004) and have fewer limitations (Alreck & Settle, 1985; Edlund & Sagarin, 2009; Newstead, Pollard, & Riezebos, 1987; Weems & Onwuegbuzie, 2001). Thus, the most reliable continuous scales tend to reproduce the results found by dichotomous scales, while continuous scales that produce conflicting results tend to have poor reliability or other limitations. The BJI also has strengths which continuous measures lack. As Buss et al. (1999) have noted, Likert-type rating scales are subject to ceiling effects when they are used to rate the magnitude of distress one would experience when confronted with an infidelity. This is because men and women find both sexual and emotional infidelity highly distressing (Buss et al., 1992; Shackelford & Buss, 1997). As a result, the forced-choice paradigm can be used to circumvent these ceiling effects by challenging participants to select one option or the other. In addition, this paradigm is more sensitive to underlying qualitative differences that continuous scales cannot detect (Shackelford & Buss, 1997).
Interpretations of the data obtained from the CSWS are limited by social desirability and self-presentational concerns. In addition, it is difficult to assess the criterion validity of many of the domains on the CSWS (Crocker et al., 2003), and the scale cannot be valid if participants lack insight into the contingencies of their own self-worth. However, analyses of the CSWS have generally shown that the scale is not vulnerable to self-presentational concerns (Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Luhtanen & Crocker, 2005), and good predictive validity has been shown for at least three of its domains (Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002; Overstreet & Quinn, 2012; Park & Crocker, 2008).
Future studies should consider using other measures of self-worth which are designed to address self-presentational concerns, lack of insight, or validity concerns (e.g., measures of implicit self-esteem, physiologic measures, or state self-esteem measures). Other measures of self-esteem can also be used in future studies, such as trait measures of global self-esteem or domain-specific self-esteem. Therefore, one strength of the present study is that it offers researchers a novel and fruitful opportunity to explore a knowledge area that is currently underdeveloped. This area of study would also be advanced by the development of new empirically validated measures of domain-specific CSW which include a broader diversity of domains, particularly those relevant to human sexuality. Furthermore, the influence of other factors beyond self-worth (e.g., cognitive or inhibitory factors) on distress associated with emotional and sexual infidelity should be considered by future research.
Implications
This study's findings may be relevant to clinicians and to society more broadly. Our results indicate that individual differences in how men react to different kinds of infidelity can be influenced by competitive feelings, and may be related to upward social comparisons with rivals. Thus, clinicians may find it fruitful to consider how competitive men will experience comparisons of their sexual prowess with rivals, and how this may contribute to the emotional meaning they attach to an infidelity. From a societal standpoint, it is also important to consider how competitive social environments or hierarchical societal structures might perpetuate sexual jealousy among men. Considering male sexual jealousy is the leading cause of spousal battery and homicide across cultures worldwide (Wilson & Daly, 1998), even a small influence from self-esteem may have significant practical consequences.
Our results also suggest that other kinds of self-worth contingencies are not relevant to how individuals react to different kinds of infidelity. It appears that both emotional infidelities and sexual infidelities affect self-esteem in fundamentally similar ways; they "hit us" in most of the same places. Therefore, beyond the role of competition among men, the fact that a client has a contingent or fragile self-esteem should not be used clinically to explain why individuals react to particular kinds of infidelities especially strongly.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank members of the University of Ottawa's Optimal Sexual Experiences Research Team and Dr. Dwayne Schindler for their assistance throughout the course of this study.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Myddryn Ellis, 221 Lyon St. N., Ottawa, ON, KIR 7X5. E-mail: myddryn.e@gmail.com
doi: 10.3138/cjhs.2017-0023
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Myddryn Ellis (1) and Peggy J. Kleinplatz (1,2)
(1) School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
(2) Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
Caption: Figure 1. Mean CSW Domain Scores for Men and Women Depending on the Type of Infidelity They Find Most Distressing CSW was assessed using a 7-point Likert-type scale (e.g., 4 = Neutral, 5 = Agree Somewhat, 6 = Agree). *p < .007.
Table 1. Bryson's (1977) dual-motivation model of jealousy
Relationship maintenance
High Low
Self-esteem High Communication, Retribution,
maintenance relationship improvement termination
Low Dependency, Emotional withdrawal,
impression management intropunitiveness
Table 2. Independent samples f-tests of sex
differences in CSW domain scores
Women Men
CSW Domain M SD M SD
Appearance 5.34 1.00 4.97 1.14
Academics 5.63 0.97 5.07 1.14
Family's Support 5.14 1.15 4.67 1.13
Others' Approval 4.40 1.20 3.87 1.27
Virtue 5.20 1.19 4.79 1.38
CSW Domain T d Cl
Appearance 4.011 * 0.349 [0.19, 0.55]
Academics 6.372 * 0.539 [0.39, 0.74]
Family's Support 4.931 * 0.417 [0.29, 0.66]
Others' Approval 5.126 * 0.433 [0.33, 0.74]
Virtue 3.751 0.327 [0.20, 0.63]
Note. * p < .001.
Table 3. Logistic regression analyses for the prediction of whether
men will perceive emotional infidelity as more distressing than
sexual infidelity
Model Odds df P Nagelkerke B
ratio [R.sup.2]
Model 1: 0.012
CSW-Academics 0.839 1 0.158 -0.175
Model 2: 0.003
CSW-Appearance 0.914 1 0.453 -0.090
Model 3: 0.063
CSW-Competition 0.629 1 0.002 * -0.464
Model 4: 0.002
CSW-Family's support 0.934 1 0.577 -0.068
Model 5: 0.000
CSW-Others' approval 1.010 1 0.929 0.010
Model 6: 0.006
CSW-Virtue 0.902 1 0.307 -0.103
Note. * p < 0.008.
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