Romantic jealousy and implicit and explicit self-esteem

Research on romantic jealousy and self-esteem mostly relies on the measurement of explicit (i.e., conscious, deliberate) aspects, without taking recent developments of the measurement of implicit (i.e., automatic) aspects into account. In this study (N = 154), we applied several measures of romantic jealousy and self-esteem (explicit, implicit), finding sex-specific as well as measurement-specific effects. Men (but not women) higher in jealousy had lower explicit self-esteem, whereas women (but not men) higher in jealousy had higher implicit self-esteem, but only when using the Implicit Association Test (whereas not the Initial Preference Task) for measuring implicit self-esteem. Individuals with damaged (i.e., low explicit and high implicit) self-esteem were more jealous than those with fragile (i.e., high explicit and low implicit) self-esteem. This differential effect was due to higher implicit self-esteem among women, whereas lower explicit self-esteem among men. These novel findings not only add to the expanding literature on romantic jealousy research, but also to research on self-esteem discrepancies.     

Sex differences in jealousy: evolutionary mechanism or artifact of measurement?

Two studies are presented that challenge the evidentiary basis for the existence of evolved sex differences in jealousy. In opposition to the evolutionary view, Study I demonstrated that a sex difference in jealousy resulting from sexual versus emotional infidelity is observed only when judgments are recorded using a forced-choice response format. On all other measures, no sex differences were found; both men and women reported greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity. A second study revealed that the sex difference on the forced-choice measure disappeared under conditions of cognitive constraint. These findings suggest that the sex difference used to support the evolutionary view of jealousy (e.g., D. M. Buss, R. Larsen, D. Westen, & J. Semmelroth, 1992; D. M. Buss et al., 1999) likely represents a measurement artifact resulting from a format-induced effortful decision strategy and not an automatic, sex-specific response shaped by evolution.     

When the sexes need not differ: Emotional responses to the sexual and emotional aspects of infidelity

This study assessed whether previously reported sex differences in jealousy could be accounted for by other related emotions. Participants were presented with hypothetical scenarios involving both a sexual and an emotional infidelity, then were asked how jealous, angry, hurt, and disgusted they would be (using continuous scales). The results replicate the sex difference in response to sexual and emotional infidelity, demonstrate that it is robust when continuous measures are used, and confirm that it is unique to jealousy. Sex differences did not emerge for anger, hurt, or disgust. Instead, sexual infidelity elicited greater anger and disgust, and less hurt, than emotional infidelity, for both women and men. The results also suggest that it is the jealous response to an emotional infidelity that best discriminates women from men, and that both women and those participants in a serious, committed relationship reported significantly greater intensity in their emotional reactions, as compared to men and those not in a committed relationship.     

Gender-typical responses to sexual and emotional infidelity as a function of mortality salience induced self-esteem striving

The authors propose that gender-differentiated patterns of jealousy in response to sexual and emotional infidelity are engendered by the differential impact of each event on self-esteem for men and women. Study 1 demonstrated that men derive relatively more self-esteem from their sex lives, whereas women's self-esteem is more contingent on romantic commitment. Based on terror management theory, it is predicted that if gender-differentiated responses to infidelity are motivated by gender-specific contingencies for self-esteem, they should be intensified following reminders of mortality. In Study 2, mortality salience (MS) increased distress in response to sexual infidelity for men and emotional infidelity for women. Study 3 demonstrated that following MS, men who place high value on sex in romantic relationships exhibited greater distress in response to sexual infidelity, but low-ex-value men's distress was attenuated. The authors discuss the implications for evolutionary and self-esteem-based accounts of jealousy as well as possible integration of these perspectives.     

“Creeping” or just information seeking? Gender differences in partner monitoring in response to jealousy on Facebook

New media, such as Facebook, has implications for romantic relationships, including easing the ability to monitor a partner's activities. Across two studies we demonstrate that in response to feelings of jealousy, women are more likely than men to monitor their partner's activities on Facebook. In Study 1, participants were exposed to one of three experimental conditions meant to provoke jealousy, and their search time on a simulated Facebook environment was recorded. Jealousy predicted more time searching for women, but less for men. In Study 2, a dyadic daily experience study, on days when women (but not men) reported greater jealousy they spent more time monitoring their partner on Facebook, and anxious attachment was one mechanism that explained this association. The results are discussed in terms of gender differences in attachment and response to feelings of jealousy.     

A reproductive threat-based model of evolved sex differences in jealousy

Although heterosexual women and men consistently demonstrate sex differences in jealousy, these differences disappear among lesbians and gay men as well as among heterosexual women and men contemplating same-sex infidelities (infidelities in which the partner and rival are the same sex). Synthesizing these past findings, the present paper offers a reproductive threat-based model of evolved sex differences in jealousy that predicts that the sexes will differ only when the jealous perceivers' reproductive outcomes are differentially at risk. This model is supported by data from a web-based study in which lesbians, gay men, bisexual women and men, and heterosexual women and men responded to a hypothetical infidelity scenario with the sex of the rival randomly determined. After reading the scenario, participants indicated which type of infidelity (sexual versus emotional) would cause greater distress. Consistent with predictions, heterosexual women and men showed a sex difference when contemplating opposite-sex infidelities but not when contemplating same-sex infidelities, whereas lesbians and gay men showed no sex difference regardless of whether the infidelity was opposite-sex or same-sex.     

Sex differences in the jealousy‐evoking effect of rival characteristics

Four studies examined sex differences in the jealousy‐evoking nature of rival characteristics. Study 1, among 130 undergraduates, made an inventory of all relevant rival characteristics that were spontaneously mentioned when asked about a rival to whom one's partner might feel attracted. On the basis of these findings, in Study 2, among 240 undergraduates, a questionnaire was constructed, containing 56 rival characteristics. A factor analysis distinguished five dimensions of rival characteristics, i.e. Social Dominance, Physical Attractiveness, Seductive Behaviors, Physical Dominance, and Social Status. In line with the predictions, men reported more jealousy when a rival was high in Social Dominance, Physical Dominance, and Social Status, whereas women reported more jealousy when a rival was high in Physical Attractiveness. Study 3 largely replicated these findings in a community sample of 144 heterosexuals. Study 4 showed that gay men (n = 80) reported more jealousy than lesbian women (n = 73) when the rival was high in Physical Dominance, and more jealousy than heterosexual men when the rival was high in Social Dominance. Lesbian women reported more jealousy than heterosexual women when the rival was high in Physical Attractiveness. In Studies 2–4, favorable rival characteristics evoked more jealousy among those high in Social Comparison Orientation, particularly among women. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of facial masculinity and voice pitch on jealousy and perceptions of intrasexual rivalry

The assessment of same-sex individuals as intrasexual competitors may depend in part on the perceived mate value of potential rivals. Men’s and women’s preferences for vocal and facial masculinity suggest that feminine women and masculine men may be perceived as more threatening intrasexual competitors. We tested the influence of men’s and women’s vocal and facial masculinity on preferences for who should accompany romantic partners on a weekend trip and on jealousy in response to imagined flirting. We found that men and women preferred their partners to be accompanied by people who had less masculine/feminine voices, and were more jealous in response to people who had relatively more masculine/feminine voices. Women, but not men, rated faces with exaggerated sex-typical characteristics as undesirable travel companions for their romantic partners and reported more jealousy in response to imagined flirting from such faces. We also found that participants who rated masculine male and feminine female stimuli as more attractive also perceived such stimuli as greater intrasexual threats, demonstrating individual differences in competition-related social perceptions. Our findings indicate that perceptions related to intrasexual competition are related to cues to underlying mate quality, which may aid in effective mate guarding.     

Antecedents, correlates, and consequences of sexual jealousy

The paper presents a social-psychological approach to the empirical study of sexual jealousy, after surveying the philosophical, sociological, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and nonscientific literature on the subject. The social-psychological approach focuses on the environmental and situational factors that cause people to act in a jealous manner. One hundred and three men and women varying in age, length of relationship, and relationship style responded to a specially designed sexual jealousy inventory. Results indicated that jealousy is a negative physiological, emotional, and mental state, experienced at least at some point of their lives by all the subjects in the study. Numerous antecedents, correlates, and consequences of jealousy were investigated and discussed. Fifty-four percent of the subjects described themselves as “a jealous person” even when they had good situational reasons to feel less secure in the relationship and to experience jealousy, and even though this dispositional self-attribution has negative consequences for coping.     

Evidence for conditional sex differences in emotional but not in sexual jealousy at the automatic level of cognitive processing

The two evolutionary psychological hypotheses that men react more jealous than women to sexual infidelity and women react more jealous than men to emotional infidelity are currently controversial because of apparently inconsistent results. We suggest that these inconsistencies can be resolved when the two hypotheses are evaluated separately and when the underlying cognitive processes are considered. We studied jealousy with forced‐choice decisions and emotion ratings in a general population sample of 284 adults aged 20–30 years using six infidelity dilemmas and recordings of reaction times. The sex difference for emotional jealousy existed for decisions under cognitive constraint, was also evident in the decision speed, increased for faster decisions, and was stronger for participants with lower education. No evidence for a sex difference in sexual jealousy was found. Our results support the view of a specific female sensitivity to emotional infidelity that canalizes the development of an adaptive sex difference in emotional jealousy conditional to the sociocultural environment. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Dark Side of Heterosexual Romance: Endorsement of Romantic Beliefs Relates to Intimate Partner Violence

Romance and control are often conflated by the media, and individuals may believe that certain controlling or jealous behaviors by men toward women are romantic and can be a sign of love and commitment in heterosexual relationships. The current study explored three types of romantic beliefs among women: endorsement of the ideology of romanticism, highly valuing romantic relationships, and the belief that jealousy is good. The goal was to determine whether these beliefs would be related to finding controlling behaviors romantic as well as to reported experiences of both physical and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV). We surveyed 275 heterosexual-identified women, aged 18 to 50, and measured their endorsement of romantic beliefs, the extent to which they romanticized controlling behavior, and experiences of physical and psychological abuse within their current or most recent romantic relationship. Romantic beliefs were related to romanticizing controlling behaviors, which, in turn, was related to experiences of IPV. There was also a significant indirect relationship between romantic beliefs and experiences of IPV. The data indicate that seemingly positive romantic ideologies can have insidious negative effects. Findings may be useful for clinicians and those who advocate for prevention of IPV as they illustrate a need to refocus traditional ideas of healthy relationships at the societal level.     

Relationship Formation and Early Risk Exposure: Diverging Associations with Romantic Self-Concept and Attachment

Early risk exposure reportedly influences romantic relationship formation via an increase in sexualized reproductive strategies and attachment insecurity. Because these are risk adaptations that predict differing interactions in romantic relationships and are complexly related to gender, two studies focused on these features in relation to relationship formation in emerging adulthood. Beyond confirming that self-reported early risk exposure was associated with a more sexualized romantic self-concept, greater numbers of relationships, and greater attachment insecurity, “Study 1” confirmed a hypothesized four-way interaction between gender, early risk, romantic self-concept, and attachment style. “Study 2” clarified the interaction through a regression model predicting a sexualized romantic self-concept differently for men and women. A structural equation model including all the study variables confirmed the hypothesis that pathways for men primarily predicted unrestricted sexuality (i.e., numbers of casual relationships), whereas the pathways for women included direct effects from risk and indicators of committed relationships.     

Exploring the Effects of the Naturalistic Fallacy: Evidence That Genetic Explanations Increase the Acceptability of Killing and Male Promiscuity

The naturalistic fallacy is the erroneous belief that what is natural is morally acceptable. Two studies assessed whether people commit the naturalistic fallacy by testing whether genetic explanations for killing and male promiscuity, as compared to experiential explanations (i.e., learning/“nurture” explanations) increase acceptance of these behaviors. In Study 1, participants who read a genetic explanation for why people kill bugs viewed bug killing as more morally acceptable than participants who read an experiential explanation, although they did not reliably kill more bugs. In Study 2, men who read a genetic explanation for why men are more promiscuous than women reported decreased interest in long‐term romantic commitment compared with men who read experiential explanations and women who read either explanation.     

Between-sex differences in romantic jealousy: Substance or spin? A qualitative analysis

An influential evolutionary account of romantic jealousy proposes that natural selection shaped a specific sexually-dimorphic psychological mechanism in response to relationship threat. However, this account has faced considerable theoretical and methodological criticism and it remains unclear whether putative sex differences in romantic jealousy actually exist and, if they do, whether they are consistent with its predictions. Given the multidimensional nature of romantic jealousy, the current study employed a qualitative design to examine these issues. We report the results of sixteen semi-structured interviews that were conducted with heterosexual men and women with the purpose of exploring the emotions, cognitions and behaviors that formed their subjective, lived experience in response to relationship threat. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed four super-ordinate themes ("threat appraisal", "emotional episodes", "sex-specific threat" and "forgive and forget") and unequivocal sex differences in romantic jealousy consistent with the evolutionary account. Self-esteem, particularly when conceptualized as an index of mate value, emerged as an important proximal mediator for both sexes. However, specific outcomes were dependent upon domains central to the individual's self concept that were primarily sex-specific. The findings are integrated within the context of existing self-esteem and evolutionary theory and future directions for romantic jealousy research are suggested.     

Personality, birth order and attachment styles as related to various types of jealousy

The relationships between jealousy, personality, attachment styles and birth order were examined in a sample of 100 Dutch men and 100 Dutch women. Three types of jealousy were examined: reactive jealousy (a negative response to the emotional or sexual involvement of the partner with someone else), preventive jealousy (efforts to prevent intimate contact of the partner with a third person), and anxious jealousy (obsessive anxiety, upset, and worrying about the possibility of infidelity of the partner). The three types of jealousy were not at all related to egoism and dominance, but significantly correlated with neuroticism, social anxiety, rigidity and hostility. Only among women was a low self-esteem correlated with jealousy. On all three jealousy measures, those with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style were more jealous than those with an avoidant style, with those with a secure attachment style being the least jealous. Attachment style was strongly related to most personality dimensions, but the effects of attachment style upon jealousy stayed virtually the same when controlling for personality factors. The most important finding in the present study was that laterborns were more jealous according to all three measures than firstborns, a finding that was not due to personality differences between first- and laterborns, nor to differences in attachment style, gender or occupational level of the father. Because some evidence was found that only borns were slightly less jealous than firstborns, it is suggested that the experience of exclusive love and attention in one's childhood, leads to a lower level of jealousy among firstborns.     

An analysis of situation and person components of jealousy

Previous studies on jealousy have focused on person factors or on situational factors, but none has compared their relative importance. Two studies are presented which analyze the contributions of persons, situations, and their interaction, with respect to jealous reactions. The first study examined intraperson variability in the intensity of jealous responses of 302 males and females when presented with four types of hypothetical jealousy situations (work, family, social, and sexual). The results of the first study supported a dispositional explanation of jealousy (i.e., substantial person and situational variance). In addition, a sizable interaction effect was revealed. Study 2 examined the nature of this interaction for sexual jealousy. Jealousy situations were broken down by distinguishing between the event, characteristics of the partner, and the relationship as separate components of the situation. Seventy-one female respondents indicated their perception of threat and their degree of upset when considering the same hypothetical jealousy-evoking events with three different partners. A substantial person component was found. In addition, responses to the jealousy-evoking events were found to vary as a function of which partner was being considered. The second study demonstrated that aspects of the relationship (i.e., relative involvement) were more important than personality characteristics of the partner in determining this intrasubject variability in the intensity of jealous rections.     

Jealousy in the blink of an eye: Jealous reactions following subliminal exposure to rival characteristics

In the present experiment it was investigated whether the evaluation of rivals could be an unconscious process, engaged in automatically whenever a rival is present. To this end, participants were subliminally primed with words relating to rival characteristics after which they read a jealousy inducing scenario and their jealousy was assessed. It was hypothesized that for women, their self‐reported mate value would act as a moderator on the effect the rival characteristics would have on jealousy. For men, it was expected that their satisfaction with their current relationship would act as a moderator. The results confirmed the expectations: women with low mate value reported more overall jealousy, but women with high mate value were more jealous after priming with attractiveness words. Men with high relationship satisfaction reported more overall jealousy than men with low relationship satisfaction, and especially after priming with social dominance words. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Proneness to romantic jealousy and responses to jealousy in others

An experiment was conducted to assess the relationship between dispositional proneness to experience romantic jealousy and perceptions of jealousy in others On the basis of cognitive and motivational constructs, it was hypothesized that (1) Persons high in proneness to jealousy perceive healthy jealous couples as more in love than healthy nonjealous couples, (2) persons high in proneness to jealousy perceive unhealthy jealous couples as less in love than unhealthy nonjealous couples, and (3) persons low in proneness to jealousy perceive healthy jealous couples as less in love than healthy nonjealous couples The latter two hypotheses were supported Results were discussed with regard to the roles of beliefs about jealousy and threats to the perceiver in individuals reactions to jealousy in others     

Did you have sex with him? Do you love her? An in vivo test of sex differences in jealous interrogations

Abundant evidence suggests that between sex differences exist in the degree to which cues to sexual and emotional infidelity trigger jealousy. A criticism of this research is that this commonly found sex difference is a consequence of the hypothetical scenario and forced-choice methodology that is commonly employed. This study used a novel method to explore the nature of jealousy-fueled interrogations (N = 75) in the face of actual infidelities captured on video in the syndicated reality program Cheaters. Fifty-one episodes of Cheaters were content analyzed by six coders trained to watch each episode. As predicted, men were more likely than women to inquire about the sexual aspect of their partners’ infidelities, whereas women were more likely than men to inquire about the emotional aspect of their partners’ infidelities. These results suggest that humans have sex-differentiated damage assessment strategies dedicated to investigating the nature of their mates’ extra-pair relationships. Although previous studies have found sex differences in jealousy using prospective and retrospective reports, this is the first study to demonstrate sex differences in romantic jealousy in vivo. These findings refute the criticism that sex differences in jealousy are mere methodological artifacts. Discussion focuses on the benefits and limitations of content-analyzing Cheaters.