The role of relationship development and attachment in the experience of romantic jealousy

We argue that a relationship development perspective is useful for understanding the experience of jealousy in romantic relationships In particular, we highlight relational uncertainty and intimacy as two indicators of relationship development that are likely to coincide with people's propensity to experience cognitive and emotional jealousy. Because recent theoretical insights about jealousy have stemmed from an attachment perspective, we also examined the extent to which people's attachment orientation predicted their experience of jealousy. We conducted a study in which 132 individuals involved in dating relationships reported on characteristics of themselves and their relationships. Consistent with our predictions, relational uncertainty was strongly tied to cognitive jealousy, and intimacy was closely linked to emotional jealousy. Also as expected, attachment anxiety exerted a direct positive effect on emotional jealousy. Taken together, these results shed light on how the experience of jealousy is associated with both relationship and individual characteristics.     

Misreading Nonmonogamy in Beauvoir's She Came to Stay

Simone de Beauvoir's novel She Came to Stay follows Françoise and her partner Pierre as their intimacy becomes increasingly entangled with the young and tempestuous Xavière. Many readings of the novel explain Françoise's bad feeling and eventual violence as symptoms of sexual jealousy. The book has also been read as a veiled autobiography of Beauvoir and Sartre's similar entanglement with Olga Kosakiewicz, so that, very often, Françoise's jealousy is assumed to stand in for Beauvoir's own. This article is about misreading in two ways. First, I argue that the common view that this is a story in part or in whole about sexual jealousy reflects a radical simplification of the emotional and interpersonal dynamics of the “trio.” Second, I argue that this interpretive simplification is in fact common in mainstream readings of nonmonogamous relationships, where “jealousy” is used to name any and all bad feelings in the vicinity of the nonmonogamous relationship, and where that bad feeling is interpreted as caused by the nonmonogamy itself. To conclude, I suggest that She Came to Stay, and particularly its notorious ending, can be seen as Beauvoir's depiction—and refusal—of the misreadings that constitute the “situation” of nonmonogamy in everyday life.     

Hegel on Legal and Moral Responsibility

When Hegel first addresses moral responsibility in the Philosophy of Right, he presupposes that agents are only responsible for what they intended to do, but appears to offer little, if any, justification for this assumption. In this essay, I claim that the first part of the Philosophy of Right, “Abstract Right”, contains an implicit argument that legal or external responsibility (blame for what we have done) is conceptually dependent on moral responsibility proper (blame for what we have intended). This overlooked argument satisfies the first half of a thesis Hegel applies to action in the Encyclopaedia Logic, namely, that the outer must be inner, and thus provides a necessary complement for his more explicit treatment of the second half of that thesis, that the inner must be outer. The claim that agents are only responsible for what they intended to do might appear, at first, to risk conflating legal and moral responsibility and to lack the necessary means to deal with the phenomenon of moral luck, but I argue that if it is properly situated within the whole of Hegel's philosophy of action it can be saved from both of these consequences and so take its place as an essential component of Hegel's full theory of moral responsibility.     

“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.     

Love and Entitlement: Sartre and Beauvoir on the Nature of Jealousy

This paper argues that an essential and often overlooked feature of jealousy is the sense that one is entitled to the affirmation provided by the love relationship. By turning to Sartre's and Beauvoir's analyses of love and its distortions, I will show how the public nature of identity can inhibit the possibility of genuine love. Since we must depend on the freedom of others to show us who we are, the uncertainty this introduces into one's sense of self can trigger anxiety and pathological attempts to control those others upon whom one's self‐value depends. In jealousy one tries to possess the other person's freedom in the hopes that a constant positive evaluation can be thereby secured. The belief that one is entitled to the self‐perfection that such affirmation promises reveals both the important existential role that the beloved plays in the jealous person's psychic structure and the manner in which gender inequalities can promote such distortions of love.     

Follower Jealousy at Work: A Test of Vecchio's Model of Antecedents and Consequences of Jealousy

The present study tests the validity of Robert P. Vecchio's seminal work on antecedents and consequences of jealousy. Specifically, we examine whether antecedents such as in-group status, supervisory considerateness, and supervisory differentiation of subordinates are associated with jealousy. In addition, we examine whether jealousy is associated with the outcome variable of social loafing. Leaders (n = 73) and their followers (n = 303) working in business organizations in Norway contributed data. Multilevel analyses showed that a high-quality working relationship with one's supervisor was inversely related to reports of jealousy. In addition, supervisors who displayed high levels of considerateness, for example, by providing followers with positive emotional support, were better able to reduce subordinate jealousy. This is a novel observation since previous research failed to demonstrate such a relationship. Finally, jealousy was positively associated with social loafing, suggesting that jealous followers engaged in an active counterproductive resistance response. The present study contributes to the extant literature by identifying unexamined antecedents of jealousy and a dysfunctional behavioral response to jealousy in the form of social loafing in the workplace.     

Jealousy at work: The role of rivals’ characteristics

The present study examined rival characteristics that may evoke jealousy in the workplace, differences between men and women in this regard, and the relationship between jealousy responses and intrasexual competitiveness and social comparison orientation. Participants were 426 male and female employees. By means of a questionnaire, participants were presented with a jealousy‐evoking scenario after which jealousy responses to 24 rival characteristics were assessed. Findings showed that a rival's social communal attributes evoked highest levels of jealousy, and that, compared to men, women reported more jealousy in response to a rival's physical attractiveness. Overall, as individuals had higher scores on intrasexual competitiveness and social comparison orientation, they also experienced more jealousy in response to their rival, regardless of his or her characteristics. These findings suggest that those characteristics that are highly valued in employees may backfire when employees perceive co‐workers as rivals.     

Is jealousy justifiable?

Jealousy has been disparaged as psychologically debilitating and morally flawed since well before Shakespeare wrote Othello and is indeed represented—particularly well—as far back as in Homer's portrayal of gods and goddesses in The Iliad. According to some of these traditional views, often shared by philosophers, psychologists and the general public, jealousy is the sign, if not of an irredeemably corrupt mind, then at least of an excessively possessive and insecure character. But does jealousy always indicate some sort of flaw or failure? Is jealousy rerehensible in all contexts? In the present paper, I intend to suggest some modifications to the view that it is, by giving jealousy a more sympathetic and charitable hearing than it normally receives, and suggesting that jealousy might, in some cases, be justifiable.     

Jealousy,Infidelity, and the Difficulty of Diagnosing Pathology: A CBT Approach to Coping with Sexual Betrayal and the Green-Eyed Monster

Humans have evolved adaptations for infidelity, as well defenses against a partner’s betrayal—centrally the emotion of jealousy. Both create problems that bring couples to therapy. Diagnosing jealousy as pathological versus normal turns out to be difficult, in part because infidelity has evolved to be concealed from the betrayed mate, which creates a signal detection problem. Because missing an infidelity committed by a mate has been more costly in evolutionary currencies than falsely suspecting a partner of cheating, selection has created an error management cognitive bias to over-infer a partner’s betrayal. Moreover, adaptations for jealousy become activated by predictors of infidelity, such as mate value discrepancies, when no actual infidelities have occurred. Cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) offers several ways to deal with these complexities. One way is to highlight potential mismatches, distinguishing between jealous emotions that were functional in ancestral environments but are less so in modern environments. A second is to distinguish between the goal of personal well-being and reproductive outcomes. Understanding the evolutionary logic of jealousy, in short, provides patients with conceptual tools for cognitively reframing jealousy and infidelity.     

Some correlates of romantic jealousy1

A definition of romantic jealousy as a complex of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors resulting from threats to one's self-esteem and/or relationship is developed. A variety of potential correlates of romantic jealousy consistent with this definition were identified. The predictive power of these correlates was assessed via regression analyses of 150 romantically involved couples' responses to scales measuring these correlates. The results suggest that for both sexes jealousy is positively related to exclusivity and feelings of inadequacy as a partner. For males, jealousy was also positively related to sex role traditionalism and the degree of dependence of self-esteem upon partners' evaluations, and negatively related to chronic esteem. For females, jealousy was positively related to dependence on the relationship. Effects of dating stage and sex on the correlates are also presented. The findings are discussed from the standpoint of primary appraisal perception of threat (Lazarus, Averill, & Opton, 1970).     

Mental health criminal defenses in persons with neuropsychiatric disorders

Persons with neuropsychiatric disorders present specific and unique challenges for forensic experts and defense attorneys in the criminal justice system. This article reviews two potential criminal defenses: legal insanity and the various legal standards or tests of criminal responsibility that are used in jurisdictions throughout the United States (i.e., the M’Naghten standard and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code), and the partial legal defense of diminished capacity (lacking the mental state necessary to be found guilty of a specific intent crime). The process of evaluating criminal responsibility or diminished capacity is also presented with a specific emphasis on common issues that arise in evaluating defendants with Intellectual Developmental Disorder (Intellectual Disability), Parasomnias, Seizure Disorders, and Neurocognitive Disorders.     

Traditional and Nontraditional Women's Attributions of Responsibility to Physically Resistive and Nonresistive Rape Victims1

This research examined the interactive effect of women observers' sex-role attitudes and a victim's use of physical resistance on perceptions of victim responsibility for a sexual assault. Women read one of two rape scenarios in which a victim either did or did not physically resist a rapist's attack and made judgments concerning victim responsibility. The observers were categorized as being either traditionally conservative or nontraditionally profeminist in their attitudes toward women and their roles in society. An analysis of responsibility judgments indicated that traditional women perceived a victim who resisted the attack as being more responsible for her own victimization than did nontraditional women, whereas nontraditional women assigned more responsibility to a victim who did not resist than did traditional women. These results are considered from a sex-role socialization perspective; the implications of these findings for legal and health care professionals are discussed.     

Gender differences in rival characteristics that evoke jealousy in response to emotional versus sexual infidelity

Previous research has shown that in men jealousy is evoked more by a rival's status‐related characteristics than in women, whereas in women jealousy is evoked more by a rival's physical attractiveness than in men. The present study examined whether the occurrence of this gender difference depends upon the type of infidelity one's partner engages in, i.e., emotional or sexual infidelity, and whether these types of jealousy evoke different emotional responses. An experiment was conducted using hypothetical jealousy situations with a 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (rival physical attractiveness: high vs. low) × 2 (rival dominance: high vs. low) × 2 (type of infidelity: sexual vs. emotional) mixed‐factor design. Jealousy evoked by emotional infidelity was primarily characterized by feelings of threat, and jealousy after sexual infidelity was primarily characterized by feelings of betrayal and anger. Following emotional infidelity, in men, a rival's dominance, and in women, a rival's physical attractiveness, evoked feelings of threat but not feelings of anger‐betrayal. In contrast, after sexual infidelity, in men, but not in women, a rival's physical attractiveness evoked feelings of betrayal‐anger but not anxiety or suspicion.     

Ekman's basic emotions: Why not love and jealousy?

Paul Ekman's view of the emotions is, we argue, pervasive in psychology and is explicitly shaped to be compatible with evolutionary thinking. Yet, strangely, jealousy and parental love, two emotions that figure prominently in evolutionary psychology, are absent from Ekman's list of the emotions. In this paper we examine why Ekman believes this exclusion is necessary, and what this implies about the limits of his conception of emotion. We propose an alternative way of thinking about emotion that does not exclude jealousy and parental love.     

Evidence from a homosexual sample for a sex‐specific rival‐oriented mechanism: Jealousy as a function of a rival's physical attractiveness and dominance

Among heterosexual women in particular, a rival's physical attractiveness evokes jealousy, whereas among heterosexual men in particular, a rival's dominance evokes feelings of jealousy. The present study conducted with gay men and lesbian women examined whether these sex‐differentiated responses reflect an evolved sex‐specific rival‐oriented mechanism according to which males and females pay attention to different rival characteristics or an evolved general partner‐oriented mechanism, according to which males and females pay attention to those characteristics that their actual and potential partners find important. In an experiment, using a 2 (Participant Sex) × 2 (Rival Physical Attractiveness) × 2 (Rival Dominance) mixed factor design, homosexual participants were presented with a scenario in which their partners were flirting with an individual of the same sex. Lesbian women, but not gay men, reported more jealousy when they were exposed to a physically attractive rival as compared with a physically unattractive rival. Gay males, but not lesbian women, reported more jealousy when they were exposed to a rival high in dominance as compared with a rival low in dominance, especially when exposed to a physically unattractive rival. In addition, among women high in dominance, a dominant rival evoked relatively less jealousy, and among women high in social comparison orientation, an unattractive rival evoked relatively more jealousy. It is concluded that males and females posses an evolved sex‐specific rival‐oriented mechanism through which they respond more or less automatically to those rival characteristics that have been important in sexual selection in our evolutionary past.     

The Cultural Factor in Lay Perception of Jealousy as a Motive for Wife Battery1

Cultural psychology is concerned with the comparative study of the way culture and psyche shape each other: This process is particularly well illustrated in the social construction of some feelings. Although sexual jealousy seems to be universal, people differ in the intensity of their reactions and in the type of stimuli perceived as threatening. Replicating previous research in Britain by Delgado and Bond (1993), a questionnaire research survey was conducted in Spain to determine if lay perception considers jealousy a justification for wife battery. The comparison of results shows striking differences: The harmdoer was seen as more guilty in Britain and the victim was seen as more guilty in Spain. Results demonstrate cultural differences in the perception of jealousy; when jealousy is a motive for assault, there are also cultural differences in judgments of responsibility. Emotions function differently in different cultures regarding perceived causes and justification for conduct.     

Sexual jealousy in the relationships of homosexual and heterosexual men: 1980 and 1992

Relationship characteristics, levels of anticipated sexual jealousy, and correlates of anticipated sexual jealousy were compared for heterosexual and homosexual men sampled from 1980 and 1992. Homosexual and heterosexual relationships were similar on relationship involvement, but homosexual (vs. heterosexual) respondents indicated lower levels of experiencing and expressing sexual jealousy, less exclusive relationships, higher levels of extradyadic sexual relations by their partners, larger number of relationships, and relationships of shorter duration. Cohort comparisons indicated that both groups of men in 1992 (vs. 1980) had higher levels of experiencing and expressing jealousy caused by the partner's extradyadic sexual behavior, more exclusive romantic relationships, fewer relationships, and relationships of longer duration. These changes suggest a transition in men's relationships that may be related to the increase in sexually transmitted diseases in general and AIDS in particular.     

Physical Size Stereotyping as a Mediator of Attributions of Responsibility in an Alleged Date-Rape Situation1

This research focuses on male and female observers' attributions of responsibility to a female accuser and a male accused of rape. Observers read 1 of 2 scenarios in which the accuser was either smaller or larger than the accused and then made judgments concerning each person's responsibility for what happened. The data indicated that the larger accuser was considered more responsible than the smaller accuser and the larger accused was perceived to be more responsible than the smaller accused. Females attributed more responsibility and had less sympathy, respect, and liking for the accused, whereas males attributed more responsibility and reported more negative attitudes toward the accuser. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for legal and health-care professionals.     

Effects of Manipulation on Attributions of Causation,Free Will,and Moral Responsibility

If someone brings about an outcome without intending to, is she causally and morally responsible for it? What if she acts intentionally, but as the result of manipulation by another agent? Previous research has shown that an agent's mental states can affect attributions of causal and moral responsibility to that agent , but little is known about what effect one agent's mental states can have on attributions to another agent. In Experiment 1, we replicate findings that manipulation lowers attributions of responsibility to manipulated agents. Experiments 2–7 isolate which features of manipulation drive this effect, a crucial issue for both philosophical debates about free will and attributions of responsibility in situations involving social influence more generally. Our results suggest that “bypassing” a manipulated agent's mental states generates the greatest reduction in responsibility, and we explain our results in terms of the effects that one agent's mental states can have on the counterfactual relations between another agent and an outcome.