Women are made more jealous by emotional infidelity than sexual unfaithfulness, Norwegian study suggests

While stereotypes between the sexes can stir up controversy, it is often acknowledged that many are based on that “grain of truth”.

New data appears to largely support the notion that men report greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity, while women become more jealous when they believe their partner is being emotionally unfaithful.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) teamed up with the University of Texas in a study published in the academic journal Elsevier involving more than 1,000 participants.

While the evolutionary psychologists involved were expecting the male and female subjects to respond differently to questions, they expressed surprise that the differences were that strong.

And the sex differences are noteworthy because they come from a country recognised as a highly egalitarian nation.

Norway is viewed as a country boasting one of the greatest degrees of gender equality in the world.

Fathers are expected to be involved in childcare, while paternity leave and other legal regulations dictate that men are supposed to invest time in family life.

Associate Professor Mons Bendixen, of the NTNU department of psychology, suggested that women who were indifferent to whether their partner was emotionally attached to other women were more likely to take care of their child without using his resources.

He added that past experiences with infidelity do not seem to affect men and women’s reactions.

"The cultural gender role perspective believes that jealousy is learned, but we feel confident that these reactions are mechanisms that are part of an evolved human mind, given comparable findings across several nations,” he said.