Social Perceptions of Jealousy in Relationships over Time

Social Perceptions of Jealousy in Relationships over Time

Miniaci Performing Arts Center

The proposed research investigates people’s opinions regarding emotional aspects of jealousy in a relationship over time. Previous research has established that young men are more focused on the sexual aspects of a relationship than young women (Buss & Kanrick, 1998; Eagly & Wood, 1999). More specifically, men tend to be more jealous when their spouses have sexual affairs with other men, whereas women tend to be more jealous when their spouses have emotional affairs with other women. The present study extends these initial findings by looking at how elderly people experience jealousy in a relationship. We surveyed 206 people on topics such as love, sex, cheating and jealousy in a relationship. The younger adults were asked to answer these questions based on their present opinions and to estimate their opinions on the same topics 25-30 years in the future. The elder adults were asked to answer the same questions based on their present opinions and also estimate their opinions 25-30 years ago. All the data has already been collected and entered in SPSS for statistical comparison. We found that elder adults are more likely to believe that it is important to be ‘in love’ than younger adults independent of gender. We also found that older males responses are statistically closer to the responses of young and elderly females than to their younger male counterparts when asked whether they would be jealous if their partners would have a emotional and sexual affair with someone else.