The influences of sociosexuality and attachment style on reactions to emotional versus sexual infidelity.

Although numerous studies have empirically supported the evolutionary-based prediction of sex differences in reactions to infidelity (men being more distressed by sexual infidelity and women being more distressed by emotional infidelity), little attention has been given to within-sex individual differences in the type of infidelity found to be more distressing. This article considers the effects of sociosexuality (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991 ) and attachment style (e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991 ) with data from 3,879 college students collected over 14 years. In addition to replicating the robust sex differences, some evidence that sociosexuality and attachment style were related to infidelity reactions was found. Greater sexual permissiveness (i.e., high scores on sociosexuality) was associated with greater distress to sexual infidelity. In addition, a preoccupied attachment style was found to increase men's odds of selecting emotional infidelity, whereas an avoidant attachment style was found to increase women's odds of selecting sexual infidelity.