Diferencias sexuales en la experiencia subjetiva de los celos: una mirada desde la Psicología Evolucionista

Abstract

Objective
. In this study sexual differences are analyzed in relation to the experience of jealousy among young
people and university students.
Method
. A non-experimental, descriptive, comparative study of a transversal
nature was carried out. The sample consisted of 299 participants, 57.2% of whom were female and 42.8%
male, who responded to forced choice questions designed by Buss, Larsen, Westen and Semmelroth (1992),
with regard to the level of distress caused by emotional or sexual infidelity.
Results
. The female subjects
presented a subjective experience of emotional jealousy when faced with possible infidelity on the part of
their partner, higher than that of men with 77.2%. The males presented a subjective experience of sexual
jealousy when faced with possible infidelity on the part of their partner, higher than that of females, with
32.8%.
Conclusion
. According to the evolutionary hypothesis, which explains the difference in jealousy from
a sexual dysmorphism, caused by adaptative processes of the species, the subjective perception of jealousy
differs accoring to sex, with males showing more distress than females in cases of sexual infidelity due to the
perceived threat to their reproductive function, and in females more distress than males in cases of emotional
infidelity on perceiving a possible loss of a protector for her offspring.