Nieder, T. & Seiffge-Krenke, I. (2001). Coping with stress in different phases of romantic development. Journal of Adolescence, 24, 297-311.
This study followed adolescents longitudinally between ages 14 and 17, annually measuring their quality of relationships, their stress levels, and their coping styles. The results taken together provide support for a developmental sequence in romantic development. The percent of participants in a relationship increased over this time period, and the durations of these relationships increased with time. With this came increases in depth -- intimacy, affection, and extent of sexual activity. Romantic stress was highest in earlier years stemming from diverse sources, later decreasing and stabilizing with age. And active coping with romantic stress was lowest initially and significantly increased at 15, remaining high. As romantic relationships develop, stress is more and more related to conflicts between the romantic partners; yet such conflicts are increasingly resolved by dyadic communication as a coping strategy. Surprisingly, the development of a more active coping style over time was not associated with the decrease in amount of romantic stress. Instead, intimacy and affection is consistently associated with reduced stress, suggesting that as the relationship matures over time romantic stress decreases.
Showing posts with label Sexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sexuality. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Sex Differences in Jealousy
Buunk, B.P., Angleitner, A., Oubaid, V., & Buss, D.M. (1996). Sex Differences in Jealousy in Evolutionary and Cultural Perspective: Tests From the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States, Psychological Science, 7, 359-363.
In the 1992 article “Sex differences in jealousy in evolutionary and cultural perspective”, Buunk et al. suggested that women typically find emotional infidelity to be more distressing than sexual infidelity, whereas men are bothered more than women by sexual infidelity. The article leapt to the conclusion that these results supported hypotheses of jealousy offered by evolutionary psychology, a field which believes behavior evolves in a species if it is (or was) somehow adaptive. C.R. Harris & N. Christenfeld (HC) reacted to the article with “Gender, Jealousy, and Reason” which provided an alternate explanation for how such data might appear.
The experiment of the 1992 Buunk et al. article was replicated by HC during their subsequent study, reaching similar results. Both studies revealed that men demonstrate greater anguish to sexual than to emotional infidelity of their partner, whereas women grow more upset to emotional infidelity. However, HC were skeptical of the conclusions drawn by Buunk et al. – namely that the gender differences in sexual jealousy shown across geography and cultures was necessarily in support of an evolutionary psychology explanation.
In order to combat such conclusions, HC posed some additional questions to their respondents. First, they explicitly asked if they discovered that their partner was engaging in sexual intercourse with someone else, how likely did they think that their mate would be in love with this person. Conversely, they also asked respondents to imagine they discovered their mate was in love with someone else and to indicate how likely they believed their partner would also be engaging in sex with this other person.
The results concluded that men think that sex implies love for their partners more so than women, whereas women think that love implies sex more so than men. Given this extra data, one would find it reasonable to conclude, as a woman, that emotional infidelity also implies sexual infidelity. Essentially a double whammy, likely signifying both emotional and sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity is thus logically more troubling to a woman and might account for the uniqueness of results across genders.
Suggesting that men and women may instead show differences in their interpretations of the evidence of infidelity, HC challenged the foundational conclusions of Buunk et al. Although applying evolutionary psychology models may be provocative and convincing, HC showed that cognitive explanations may be equally plausible. Thus, one should exercise caution when interpreting the results of such a study of jealousy.
In the 1992 article “Sex differences in jealousy in evolutionary and cultural perspective”, Buunk et al. suggested that women typically find emotional infidelity to be more distressing than sexual infidelity, whereas men are bothered more than women by sexual infidelity. The article leapt to the conclusion that these results supported hypotheses of jealousy offered by evolutionary psychology, a field which believes behavior evolves in a species if it is (or was) somehow adaptive. C.R. Harris & N. Christenfeld (HC) reacted to the article with “Gender, Jealousy, and Reason” which provided an alternate explanation for how such data might appear.
The experiment of the 1992 Buunk et al. article was replicated by HC during their subsequent study, reaching similar results. Both studies revealed that men demonstrate greater anguish to sexual than to emotional infidelity of their partner, whereas women grow more upset to emotional infidelity. However, HC were skeptical of the conclusions drawn by Buunk et al. – namely that the gender differences in sexual jealousy shown across geography and cultures was necessarily in support of an evolutionary psychology explanation.
In order to combat such conclusions, HC posed some additional questions to their respondents. First, they explicitly asked if they discovered that their partner was engaging in sexual intercourse with someone else, how likely did they think that their mate would be in love with this person. Conversely, they also asked respondents to imagine they discovered their mate was in love with someone else and to indicate how likely they believed their partner would also be engaging in sex with this other person.
The results concluded that men think that sex implies love for their partners more so than women, whereas women think that love implies sex more so than men. Given this extra data, one would find it reasonable to conclude, as a woman, that emotional infidelity also implies sexual infidelity. Essentially a double whammy, likely signifying both emotional and sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity is thus logically more troubling to a woman and might account for the uniqueness of results across genders.
Suggesting that men and women may instead show differences in their interpretations of the evidence of infidelity, HC challenged the foundational conclusions of Buunk et al. Although applying evolutionary psychology models may be provocative and convincing, HC showed that cognitive explanations may be equally plausible. Thus, one should exercise caution when interpreting the results of such a study of jealousy.
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