For my Honours research, I completed a study on the factors that influence how people react to romantic jealousy. For this research, I collected information in a questionnaire from 437 adults in an online questionnaire. I am using a similar format for the first study of my PhD.

In this study, I was examining how gender influences the reaction of people to two types of jealousy - jealousy in reaction to emotional infidelity, and jealousy in reaction to sexual infidelity. I found that men were more likely to become jealous in reaction to sexual infidelity, and women were more likely to be jealous in reaction to emotional infidelity. These results have been found in several studies previously. I also expanded on these findings by examining variables that might influence how men and women interpret these jealousy cues. I found that for women, being currently involved in a romantic relationship increased their distress at emotional infidelity, and having a high sex drive increased their distress at sexual infidelity. For men, I found that having a high sex drive, being high in attachment avoidance (i.e., having difficulties with emotional intimacy and closeness), and having previously experienced a partner cheating on them sexually made them more likely to be distressed at sexual infidelity.

These results have been presented as a paper at the 8th Annual APS Psychology of Relationships Interest Group conference, which was held in 2008 in Melbourne, Australia. I am also preparing to submit these results for publication.

This research has recently been presented as a poster at the Evolution 09, the 5th Biennial Meeting of the Australasian Evolution Society, which was held in Canberra, Australia. If you wish to print out a copy of the poster in A4 size, or have a closer look, click on the image below to link to a PDF (1.8MB) version of the poster. I'm sure I don't need to say this, but please don't plagiarise any part of this poster - I worked hard to make it and will be most upset if anyone steals my work!