Emotional Promiscuity Scale

Abstract

The Emotional Promiscuity Scale (EP Scale) was developed by Daniel Nelson Jones to measure the tendency to develop romantic feelings quickly, often, and indiscriminately. Historically, research on promiscuity focused predominantly on the sexual dimension, neglecting the emotional component. The EP construct captures elements such as the speed and frequency of falling in love, alongside an exaggerated fascination with the experience itself. Crucially, the EP Scale is designed to be distinct yet comparable to measures of sexual promiscuity and romanticism, ensuring it assesses a unique individual difference variable relevant to relationship origins, development, and potential health consequences (e.g., STD risk associated with the feeling of ‘being in love’).

Keywords

Emotional promiscuity, relationship dynamics, love-proneness, sexual health, infidelity, psychometric scale, romantic relationships.

Authors

Daniel Nelson Jones

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Emotional Promiscuity (EP) Scale is to provide a standardized, reliable, and valid instrument for measuring individual differences in the tendency to form romantic feelings rapidly, frequently, and without great discrimination. Prior research had extensively examined sexual promiscuity, but lacked a dedicated tool to assess the emotional equivalent, which is hypothesized to be equally important in the formation and sustenance of relationships.

The scale was developed to facilitate research into the consequences of emotional behavior, particularly concerning relationship stability, mate selection, and public health outcomes, such as reduced caution regarding sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) when an individual reports being “in love.” By establishing a clear measure, researchers can explore how past emotional tendencies predict current relationship behaviors, including infidelity and partner aversion.

Construct

The psychological construct measured by the EP Scale is Emotional Promiscuity, defined as the tendency to develop romantic feelings quickly, often, and less discriminately. This construct encompasses several key behavioral and attitudinal elements, including the ease and frequency of falling in love, the tendency to experience romantic connections with multiple people simultaneously, and an intense enjoyment or fascination with the state of ‘falling in love’.

The developer, Daniel Nelson Jones, emphasized the need to differentiate EP from related constructs. Specifically, it must be distinguished from sexual promiscuity (indiscriminate sexual activity) and romanticism (the endorsement of idealistic notions about love). While these constructs may correlate, the EP Scale was carefully constructed to assess emotional tendencies independently, thus providing unique predictive validity regarding relationship outcomes.

Validity

The validity of the EP Scale was established through examinations of convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity across student and web-based samples. Discriminant validity was supported by demonstrating that EP was not inherently confounded with measures of sexual promiscuity, as measured by the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI). For example, in the college sample, the correlation between EP and SOI was negligible for males (-.01) and moderate for females (.27), indicating distinct constructs.

Convergent validity showed expected correlations with related psychological variables. EP correlated positively with the Romantic Beliefs scale (r = .24 for males, r = .34 for females). Furthermore, EP showed a significant positive correlation with Openness to Experience (part of the Big Five Inventory) for men (r = .38). EP was also positively associated with anxious attachment style and negatively associated with avoidant attachment style across both samples.

Criterion validity was demonstrated in longitudinal behavioral studies (Jones & Paulhus, 2009). EP scores significantly predicted the total number of romantic interests reported by participants and were identified as the lone predictor of emotional infidelity, operationalized by weekly discrepancies between declared partners and romantic interests. This confirms the scale’s utility in predicting real-world relationship outcomes.

Reliability

The reliability of the EP Scale was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha in two distinct datasets: a college student sample (N = 142) and a broad web-based community sample (N = 775). In the college dataset, the internal consistency (alpha reliability) was found to be .69 for both male and female participants.

In the web-based data, which included a wider age range (16 to 71), the reliability estimates slightly improved for women. While the specific alpha value for male web participants was not fully provided in the source, the alpha reliability was reported as .73 for female participants. These values indicate generally acceptable internal consistency for a newly developed psychological measure.

Factor Analysis

The final set of 10 EP items was derived through a rigorous refinement process starting from a large initial pool of items. A series of factor analyses, combined with part-whole correlations, were employed to narrow down the item set. Items were retained only if they loaded strongly onto the first unrotated factor across a total of four independent datasets. This procedure ensured that the resulting 10-item scale provided robust coverage of the core construct of emotional promiscuity, spanning reported behaviors, general attitudes, and identity elements related to the tendency to fall in love.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychometric scale

Format: Paper-and-pencil or online survey format

Language Available: English (Original development language)

Population Group: Adults (General population and college students)

Age Group: 16 to 71 years old (Appropriate for the adult life-span)

Population Details: Data collected from a college student sample (N=142, European extraction only) and a broader web-based community sample (N=775) with a wide range of ages and education levels. Administration should be private and confidential.

Test Methodology: The scale uses a Likert-style agreement rating for most items, typically ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Completion time is rapid, typically less than one minute.

Keywords

Emotional promiscuity, relationship instability, anxious attachment, sociosexuality, Big Five, romantic interests, psychological measurement.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Daniel N. Jones, 2136 West Mall, Department of Psychology, UBC, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Information regarding formal licensing or permissions fees is not explicitly detailed in the provided source. Researchers should contact the corresponding author, Daniel N. Jones, for usage permissions.

Fee: Not specified.

Test Year: Development and validation research cited primarily from 2009 (Jones, 2009; Jones & Paulhus, 2009).

Reference’s

• Diamond, L. M. (2004). Emerging perspectives on distinctions between romantic love and sexual desire. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 116–119.

• Harms, P. D., Williams, K. M., & Paulhus, D. L. (2001). Predictors of love-proneness vs. lust-proneness. Poster presented at the 109th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco.

• John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp.102–138). New York: Guilford Press.

• Jones, D. N. (2009). The potential consequences of past sexual and emotional promiscuity: Preliminary findings. Manuscript submitted for publication.

• Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2009). Emotional promiscuity and its consequences for romantic relationships and infidelity. Manuscript in preparation.

• Manuel, S. (2005). Obstacles to condom use among secondary school students in Maputo City, Mozambique. Culture, Health and Sexuality, 7, 293–302.

• Rosenthal, D., Gifford, S., & Moore, S. (1998). Safe sex or safe love: Competing discourses? AIDS Care, 10, 35–45.

• Simpson, J. A., & Gangestad, S. W. (1991). Individual differences in sociosexuality: Evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 870–883.

• Sprecher, S., & Metts, S. (1989). Development of the ‘Romantic Beliefs Scale’ and examination of the effects of gender and gender-role orientation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6, 387–411.

Items of the Emotional Promiscuity Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Rate your agreement using the above guidelines:

1. I fall in love easily.

2. For me, romantic feelings take a long time to develop.

3. I feel romantic connections right away.

4. I love the feeling of falling in love.

5. I am not the type of person who falls in love.

6. I often feel romantic connections to more than one person at a time.

7. I have been in love with more than one person at the same time.

8. I fall in love frequently.

9. I tend to jump into relationships.

10. During your entire life, how many people have you fallen in love with? A = None B = 1 C = 2 D = 3 E = 4 or More