Marital status as a candidate moderator variable of male-female differences in sexual jealousy: The need for representative population samples

Evolutionary psychological theories predict pronounced and universal male-f emale differences in sexual jealousy. Recent cross-cultural research, using the forced-choice jealousy items pioneered by Buss, et al., 1992, repeated ly found a large sex differential on these self report measures: men signif icantly more often than women choose their mate's imagined sexual infidelit y to be more distressing or upsetting to them than an imagined emotional in fidelity. However this body of evidence is solely based on undergraduate sa mples and does not lake into account demographic factors. This study examin ed male-female differences in sexual jealousy in a community sample (N=335, Eastern Austria). Within a logistic regression model, with other variables controlled for, marital status was a stronger predictor for sexual jealous y than respondents' sex. Contrary to previous research, the sex differentia l's effect size was only modest. These findings stress the pitfalls of prem aturely generalizing evidence from undergraduate samples to the general pop ulation and the need for representative population samples in this research area.