Spolne i dobne razlike u ljubomori te odnos ljubomore i vlastite vrijednosti kao partnera - evolucijska perspektiva

Fajfarić, Marta. (2009). Spolne i dobne razlike u ljubomori te odnos ljubomore i vlastite vrijednosti kao partnera - evolucijska perspektiva. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Tadinac, Meri].

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Abstract

According to the evolutionary theory, jealousy is a psychlogical mechanism which evolved because it solved an important problem of individual's successful reproduction in the evolutionary history of human species – partner's infidelity. Evolutionary theory predicts sex differences in jealousy elicited by emotional and sexual infidelity, which was confirmed in numerous studies. Only the small proportion of this studies examined the role of age in the functioning of jealousy mechanism, and therefore we decided to include the age variable in present study. The first problem of this study was to examine the relationship of age, sex, infidelity type and jealousy elicited by infidelity. We expected to find sex differences in jealousy related to infidelity type, but we had no clear expectations about the role of age. The results of 104 participants in the reproductive age and 95 participants in the post-reproductive age showed : (1) a significant interaction of sex and infidelity type – the hypothesis about sex differences was confirmed, (2) significant main effect of age (older participants are less jealous), (3) significant age-infidelity type interaction (sexual infidelity makes younger participants more jealous) and (4) significant age-sex-infidelity type interaction (sex differences did not exist in the older sample, but were found in the younger sample; young male participants showed greater jealousy in case of sexual infidelity, when compared to older participants). The second problem of the study was to test the prediction about a negative correlation between mate value and jealousy in romantic relationships. Mate value is a set of characteristics that makes individual desirable to the opposite sex. We hypothesized that partners of individuals of higher mate value have less reasons for infidelity (because they had already found a partner of high quality), and therefore the individuals of high mate value should show less jealousy and vice versa. Our presumption about a negative correlation was not confirmed.

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