Date of Award
6-1999
Access Restriction
Campus Access only Theses
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Counseling Psychology
School or College
Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
Abstract
Jealousy and sex differences in response to hypothetical relationships developed via the Internet by participants' romantic partners were examined. Participants were 119 undergraduate students from a private Western university who participated on-campus, and 877 off-campus individuals who participated via computer. Participants responded to a questionnaire that described one's romantic partner engaging in an on-line relationship. The nature of the relationship, emotional or sexual, possibility of a partner meeting the rival, possible and impossible, and divestment of the partner's resources, low or high, were all varied. Conditions describing a rival with whom a meeting was possible, sexual on-line infidelity, and high divestment of resources elicited greater jealousy. Women reported greater jealousy than men when a partner's meeting with the rival was impossible. Results are discussed in terms of the evolutionary perspective of sex differences.
Recommended Citation
Childers, Meredith E., "Internet infidelity: Do evolutionary predictions apply?" (1999). LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations. 1202.
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/1202
