Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Sep 1;13(3):1474704915593666.
doi: 10.1177/1474704915593666.

Health, Anticipated Partner Infidelity, and Jealousy in Men and Women

Steven Arnocky  1 , Marlena Pearson  1 , Tracy Vaillancourt  2
Affiliations

Health, Anticipated Partner Infidelity, and Jealousy in Men and Women

Steven Arnocky et al. Evol Psychol. .

Abstract

Health has been identified as an important variable involved in mate choice. Unhealthy organisms are generally less able to provide reproductively important resources to partners and offspring and are more likely to pass on communicable disease. Research on human mate preferences has shown that both men and women prefer healthy mates. Yet to date, little research has examined how health relates to one's own mating experiences. In the present study, 164 participants (87 women) who were currently in heterosexual romantic relationships completed measures of frequency and severity of health problems, anticipated partner infidelity, and intensity of jealousy felt in their current relationship. Mediation analyses showed that health problems predicted greater anticipated partner infidelity and jealousy scores and that anticipated partner infidelity mediated the links between health and jealousy for both frequency and severity of health problems, controlling for both sex and relationship duration. These findings suggest that unhealthy people perceive themselves to be at a mating disadvantage, experiencing associated differences in perceptions and emotions surrounding their romantic partners' fidelity.

Keywords: health; infidelity; jealousy; mate choice; mate selection.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Anticipated partner infidelity mediates the relation between frequency of health problems and jealousy. Unstandardized coefficients are shown. *p < .05, **p < .01.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Anticipated partner infidelity mediates the relation between severity of health problems and jealousy. Unstandardized coefficients are shown. *p < .05, **p < .01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Able D. J. (1996). The contagion indicator hypothesis for parasite-mediated sexual selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 93, 2229–2233. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.5.2229 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adamo S. A., Spiteri R. J. (2009). He’s healthy, but will he survive the plague? Possible constraints on mate choice for disease resistance. Animal Behaviour, 77, 67–78. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.09.011
    1. Allaire S. (1988). How a chronically ill mother manages. The American Journal of Nursing, 88, 47–49. - PubMed
    1. Altschuler J., Dale B. (1999). On being an ill parent. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 4, 23–37. doi:10.1177/1359104599004001003
    1. Amato P. R., Previti D. (2003). People’s reasons for divorcing gender, social class, the life course, and adjustment. Journal of Family Issues, 24, 602–626. doi:10.1177/0192513X03024005002

LinkOut - more resources