Gender Differences in Guilt After Infidelity

Research on infidelity has long split the behaviour into two broad kinds, sexual and emotional, and asked which one people find more distressing. A Canadian study reported in an evolutionary psychology journal turned the question around and examined guilt, meaning how participants imagined they would feel about their own actions instead of a partner's.

The project was carried out by a psychology research team at a Canadian university. According to coverage of the findings, the results ran against the researchers' own expectations.

How the study was set up

The sample consisted of men and women recruited in Toronto. Each was asked to picture being drawn to someone other than a current, desired or past partner. Participants then worked through a series of dilemmas, with every one pairing an emotional option against a sexual option, and indicated which choice would leave them feeling guiltier.

This forced-choice design is common in social psychology, since it makes people rank two outcomes instead of rating each in isolation. It also has limits: imagined scenarios do not always match real behaviour, and a sample from a single city represents only a slice of the population.

What the results showed

On average, men reported that sexual cheating would weigh on them more heavily, while women reported that emotional infidelity would. In practical terms, women said falling in love with another person would produce more guilt than experimenting sexually with that person. Men said the reverse: sex without emotional attachment, even a single encounter, would feel worse than love without sex.

The authors had predicted the opposite pattern. They proposed an explanation involving projection. If individuals assume that everyone, whatever their sex, worries most about the same kind of betrayal that worries them, they may draw faulty conclusions about what a partner values and feel guilt accordingly.

Background figures on infidelity

Survey research on infidelity produces widely varying figures, because definitions and methods differ between studies and respondents may under-report. Earlier research has often reported differences between how men and women describe affairs, though such findings vary between samples and are not universal.

Interpreting the findings

Evolutionary explanations of jealousy and guilt remain debated. Some scholars favour accounts rooted in reproductive strategy, whereas others point to social learning, cultural expectations and differences in how men and women are encouraged to talk about feelings. A single self-report study can illustrate a pattern in one group without settling that argument, and critics of the field often note that many samples come from university or urban populations.