Infidelity as the Breaking of Accepted Rules between People - Research Paper Example

?How men and women react differently towards infidelity and why? Infidelity is the breaking of accepted rules between people especially in an intimate relationship. In simple words, it is called cheating or being unfaithful. This breach in faithfulness can exist between spouses, friends, colleagues, religious groups, politicians, and businessmen. If we talk about relationships between men and women, men cheat and women still stay with them because those men might be financially strong and respectable citizens. So their women choose to live with them. Women also cheat but they are harder to get caught than men. The point of discussion here is how men and women behave differently when they discover that they are being cheated or their friend or spouse is being unfaithful to them. Men and women show dissimilar emotional responses to events. Their psychological differences help us understand why their responses are different. Nannini and Meyers (2000) studied the male and female response to social and emotional infidelity. They conducted their experiment on 165 women and 152 men, and examined their responses “using both Smith and Elsworth’s six cognitive dimensions of emotion and a measure of emotional upset.” They found that the gender of the victim was as important as the nature of the scenario itself, and concluded that women were more emotionally distressed when they faced infidelity than men. They state in their research that evolutionary psychologists have agreed upon another fact that there is also a big difference in the jealousy content of male and female reactions in that men are more jealous if their mates are cheating upon them. Men fear sexual infidelity and women fear emotional infidelity, and their reactions are also more limited to their areas of jealousy. Bjorklund and Shackelford (1999) had also supported this previously by stating in his research that the psychological differences and the gender roles assigned to women by the society, like caring more for children and looking after the spouse, maker her react more to emotional infidelity rather than sexual infidelity. Women tend to be more emotionally insecure than men and so they are hurt more when they fall prey to emotional infidelity by another person may he be a spouse, friend or a colleague. Men are, on the other hand, emotionally strong in nature so they are not easily moved when they undergo an emotional situation; however, they show more distress than women when they encounter sexual infidelity (Sagarin et al., 2003; Harris, 2000; Pietrzak et al., 2002). DeKay and Buss (1992, p.184) state that evolutionary psychology shapes human psychological mechanisms and this is the difference in the functioning of these mechanisms in both sexes that makes them react differently to different situations. More of the research and literature is based on spousal infidelity. Duncombe (2004, p.106) talks about the double standards put forward by men in which they engage more often in extradyad sex than women and also do not forgive women to engage in extradyad sex. Research states that men like to and do engage in extramarital short span relationships, and also fall prey to vehement jealousy if their female counterparts do the same, and this jealousy often results in murders or murder attempts. However, there are researchers like Mead (1975) who agreed that women are the more jealous sex because they are jealous even when they are not in love while men are only jealous when they are in love. Mead states that the reason for this is the women are generally dependent on men and they do not want to lose them for the sake of their social stability and financial resources. Researchers agree that men possess low levels of anxiety and stress within them due to which their reactions to infidelity other than sexual one is not that stronger as women whose stress levels are much higher. But the case is opposite in sexual infidelity. Cann, Mangum and Wells (2001, p.185) suggest that besides evolutionary aspects of human psychology, there are also biological influences that design gender responses toward conflict and infidelity. They studied attitudinal factors that were responsible for males being more distressed about sexual infidelity than women. They surveyed 156 participants and studied their responses to relationship infidelity. They found that there was a clear gender difference in the responses. They concluded that “women were more likely to choose emotional infidelity as most distressing, while more men chose sexual infidelity as most distressing.” The cause of emotional distress in women was the romantic beliefs with which they fantasized their relationships. Harvey and Miller (2000, p.367) state that since men and women have different reasons to get involved in extra relationships, their reactions are also different to partners’ infidelity. They mention a study (p.367) in which men and women were asked about their responses. Women were found to get more disappointed and doubtful of their partners’ infidelity but they were also the ones who wanted to protect the relationship. Due to this fact, the level of cortisol (stress hormone) in women increased at the start of counseling sessions but decreased afterwards because they turned the aggressive discussion toward a comfortable one trying to resolve the conflict. The men with secure female partners suffered from low stress levels. The study also revealed that the women were protecting their partners trying to deny the infidelity “and yet more willing to confront their partner and find out the reason for infidelity” (p.367). Research states that men are more destructive and belligerent toward relationship infidelity. However, females are more likely to undergo the feelings of betrayal. Prinz (2007, p.253) supports the same idea of romantic jealousy. He asserts that the patterns of jealousy are different in men and women. This difference is because of the gender roles they are assigned and also because of their psychological dissimilarities. Women want more financial, social and emotional support from their partners; while, men want exclusive sexual pleasure. Women provide them with sexual access and in return men provide them with support (p.252). Why men are more disturbed in sexual infidelity is that they do not want to invest in some other person’s gene. If a man’s wife is having extramarital relations, then she may carry offspring with genes other than her husband’s. So if the husband does not know, then he may carry on investing in and supporting a child that is not his own. So, when he finds out, he is more emotionally disturbed. Hence, it is concluded that men and women show dissimilar responses toward infidelity due to their psychological differences and personal preferences. References Bjorklund, D.F., & Shakelford. T.K. (1999). Differences in parental investment contribute to important differences between men and women. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(3), pp. 86-89. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/8/3/86.short Cann, A., Mangum, J.L., & Wells, M. (2001). Distress in response to relationship infidelity: the roles of gender and attitudes about relationships. The Journal of Sex Research, 38(3), pp. 185-190. Duncombe, J. (2004). The State if Affairs, Explorations in Infidelity and Commitment. DeKay, W.T., & Buss, D.M. (1992). Human nature, individual differences, and the importance of context: perspectives from evolutionary psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1(6), pp. 184-189. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://www.jstor.org/pss/20182174 Harris, C.R. (2000). Psychological responses to imagined infidelity: The specific innate modular view of jealousy reconsidered. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(6), pp. 1082-1091. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~roney/other%20pdf%20readings/reserve%20readings/harris.pdf Harvey, J.H., & Miller, E.D. (2000). Gender differences in reactions to infidelity. Loss and Trauma: General and Close Relationship Perspectives. New York: Psychology Press. Mead, M. (1975). Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in the Changing World. USA: W. Morrow. Nannini, D.K., & Meyers, L.S. (2000). Jealousy in social and emotional infidelity: An alernative to the evolutionary expansion. The Journal of Sex Research, 37(2), pp. 117-122. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://www.jstor.org/pss/3813596 Pietrzak, R.H., Laird, J.D., Stevens, D.A., & Thompson, N.S. (2002). Sex differences in human jealousy: A coordinated study of forced-choice, continuous rating-scale, and physiological responses on the same subjects. Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 23(2), pp. 83-94. Prinz, J.J. (2007). The Emotional Construction of Morals. USA: Oxford University Press. Sagarin, B.J., Becker, D.V., Guadagno, R.E., Nicastle, L.D., & Millevoi, A. (2003). Sex differences (and similarities) in jealousy: The moderating influence of infidelity experience and sexual orientation of the infidelity. Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 24(1), pp. 17-23. Read More