Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Glenn Weisfeld

Abstract

There has been a lack of comparative research on homosexual couples, comparing them to heterosexual couples, which is also grounded in solid theory. In order to remedy this, evolutionary theory is used to make predictions on similarities and differences between heterosexual and homosexual couples within three domains, relationship satisfaction, jealousy, and mate guarding. It was predicted that 1) homosexual couples would not differ from heterosexual couples in relationship satisfaction; 2) some gender differences relating to jealousy would be the same and some would be reversed in homosexual individuals; 3) mate guarding would be present, but lower, in homosexual individuals as opposed to heterosexual individuals. One hundred and fifty-six homosexual couples were analyzed and compared to existing studies on homosexual couples. It was found that 1) homosexual men did not differ from heterosexual individuals in the measure of relationship satisfaction, but homosexual women did differ; 2) the gender differences in jealousy were consistent with what was expected, in that some were the same in homosexual individuals as heterosexual individual, and others were reversed; 3) mate guarding was present, at least to a lesser extent, in only homosexual women, not homosexual men. While the relatively small sample size of the homosexual sample is of concern, we hope that this study sets the groundwork for future comparative studies based in solid theory.

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