Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-ksm4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T22:14:36.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

18 - Sexual Jealousy in Males

The Evolution of a Specific Mechanism for Sexual Jealousy

from Part III - Postcopulatory Adaptations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

By
Tsukasa Kato
Edited by
Todd K. Shackelford
Todd K. Shackelford
Affiliation:
Oakland University, Michigan
Get access

Summary

Sexual jealousy arises in response to a perceived threat to a valued relationship with an individual, through perceptions or suspicions of a partner’s sexual infidelity. An evolutionary psychological perspective predicts that men are more sensitive to the sexual aspects of their partner’s infidelity than women, whereas women are more sensitive to the emotional aspects of their partner’s infidelity than men. This evolutionary perspective can be referred to as the sex-specific evolved jealousy mechanism (EJM). Many studies have verified the EJM. In this chapter, findings of studies on the EJM are discussed from two perspectives –the psychometric properties and participants’ and rivals’ characteristics – focusing on the findings from a meta-analysis in our laboratory (87 articles, k = 164, N = 125,698). Findings on the EJM are discussed from a psychometric perspective, focusing on (a) the rating methods of responses to a partner’s infidelity (i.e., forced-choice paradigm vs. continuous measures), (b) the validity of hypothetical infidelity scenarios used to have participants imagine a partner’s infidelity, (c) participants’ physiological responses to their partners’ infidelity, (d) participants’ response times to their partners’ infidelity, (e) participants’ recall performance for stimuli regarding infidelity, (f) participants’ responses to their partners’ infidelity under cognitive load, (g) heritability in behavior genetics, and (h) participants’ behaviors following their partners’ infidelity (e.g., morbid jealousy, violence, sexual coercion, and forgiveness). Findings on the EJM are discussed with respect to characteristics, focusing on (a) sexual orientation of participants, (b) participants who had nonmonogamous relationships, (c) children’s or siblings’ partners’ infidelity, and (d) participants’ digit ratio instead of sex. The EJM has been examined by many studies using various methods; however, conflicting findings have been reported. These differences seem to be caused by conflicting interpretations about the EJM and the rating methods of responses to infidelity.

Keywords

sexual jealousysexual infidelitysex-specific evolved jealousy mechanismforced-choice paradigm
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology , pp. 426 - 450
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, K. G. (2006). How well does paternity confidence match actual paternity? Current Anthropology, 47, 513–520.Google Scholar
Andrews, P. W., Gangestad, S. W., Miller, G. F., Haselton, M. G., Thornhill, R., & Neale, M. C. (2008). Sex differences in detecting sexual infidelity: Results of a maximum likelihood method for analyzing the sensitivity of sex differences to underreporting. Human Nature, 19, 347–373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Apostolou, M., Aristidou, A., & Eraclide, C. (2019). Reactions to and forgiveness of infidelity: Exploring severity, length of relationship, sex, and previous experience effects. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 5, 317–330.Google Scholar
Archer, J. (2000). Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651–680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barrett, H. C., Frederick, D. A., Haselton, M. G., & Kurzban, R. (2006). Can manipulations of cognitive load be used to test evolutionary hypotheses? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 513–518.Google Scholar
Baschnagel, J. S., & Edlund, J. E. (2016). Affective modification of the startle eyeblink response during sexual and emotional infidelity scripts. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2, 114–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bendixen, M., Kennair, L. E. O., Kaasa Ringheim, H., Isaksen, L., Pedersen, L., Svangtun, S., … & Hagen, K. (2015). In search of moderators of sex differences in forced-choice sexual jealousy responses: Effects of 2D:4D digit ratio and relationship infidelity experiences. Nordic Psychology, 67, 272–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bendixen, M., Kennair, L. E. O., & Grøntvedt, T. V. (2018). Forgiving the unforgivable: Couples’ forgiveness and expected forgiveness of emotional and sexual infidelity from an error management theory perspective. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 322–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buunk, B. P., & Dijkstra, P. (2004). Gender differences in rival characteristics that evoke jealousy in response to emotional versus sexual infidelity. Personal Relationships, 11, 395–408.Google Scholar
Buunk, A. P., Massar, K., & Dijkstra, P. (2007). A social cognitive evolutionary approach to jealousy: The automatic evaluation of one’s romantic rivals. In Forgas, J., Haselton, M., & Von Hippel, W. (Eds.). Evolution and the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition. (pp. 213–228). New York, NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. (2013). Sexual jealousy. Psychological Topics, 22, 155–182.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. (2018). Sexual and emotional infidelity: Evolved gender differences in jealousy prove robust and replicable. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13, 155–160.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. (2019). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind (6th ed.). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M., & Duntley, J. D. (2011). The evolution of intimate partner violence. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16, 411–419.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M., Durkee, P. K., Shackelford, T. K., Bowdle, B. F., Schmitt, D. P., Brase, G. L., … & Trofimova, I. (2020). Human status criteria: Sex differences and similarities across 14 nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119, 979–998.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M., Larsen, R. J., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, J. (1992). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolution, physiology, and psychology. Psychological Science, 3, 251–255.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (2019). Mate preferences and their behavioral manifestations. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 77–110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cann, A., & Baucom, T. R. (2004). Former partners and new rivals as threats to a relationship: Infidelity type, gender, and commitment as factors related to distress and forgiveness. Personal Relationships, 11, 305–318.Google Scholar
Carpenter, C. J. (2012). Meta-analyses of sex differences in responses to sexual versus emotional infidelity: Men and women are more similar than different. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36, 25–37.Google Scholar
DeSteno, D., Bartlett, M. Y., Braverman, J., & Salovey, P. (2002). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolutionary mechanism or artifact of measurement? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1103–1116.Google Scholar
DeSteno, D., Bartlett, M. Y., & Salovey, P. (2006). Constraining accommodative homunculi in evolutionary explorations of jealousy: A reply to Barrett et al. (2006). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 519–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeSteno, D. A., & Salovey, P. (1996). Genes, jealousy, and the replication of misspecified models. Psychological Science, 7, 376–379.Google Scholar
Easton, J. A., Schipper, L. D., & Shackelford, T. K. (2007). Morbid jealousy from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 399–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, J. A., & Shackelford, T. K. (2009). Morbid jealousy and sex differences in partner-directed violence. Human Nature, 20, 342–350.Google Scholar
Edlund, J. E., & Sagarin, B. J. (2017). Sex differences in jealousy: A 25-year retrospective. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 259–302.Google Scholar
Frederick, D. A., & Fales, M. R. (2016). Upset over sexual versus emotional infidelity among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45, 175–191.Google Scholar
Fussell, N. J., Rowe, A. C., & Park, J. H. (2011). Masculinised brain and romantic jealousy: Examining the association between digit ratio (2D:4D) and between- and within-sex differences. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 107–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geary, D. C., DeSoto, M. C., Hoard, M. K., Sheldon, M. S., & Cooper, M. L. (2001). Estrogens and relationship jealousy. Human Nature, 12, 299–320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grice, J. W., & Seely, E. (2000). The evolution of sex differences in jealousy: Failure to replicate previous results. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 348–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamann, S., Herman, R. A., Nolan, C. L., & Wallen, K. (2004). Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 411–416.Google Scholar
Harris, C. R. (2000). Psychophysiological responses to imagined infidelity: The specific innate modular view of jealousy reconsidered. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1082–1091.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, C. R. (2003a). A review of sex differences in sexual jealousy, including self-report data, psychophysiological responses, interpersonal violence, and morbid jealousy. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 102–128.Google Scholar
Harris, C. R. (2003b). Factors associated with jealousy over real and imagined infidelity: An examination of the social-cognitive and evolutionary psychology perspectives. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27, 319–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, C. R. (2005). Male and female jealousy, still more similar than different: Reply to Sagarin (2005). Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 76–86.Google Scholar
Kato, T. (2014a). A reconsideration of sex differences in response to sexual and emotional infidelity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43, 1281–1288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kato, T. (2014b). Testing the sexual imagination hypothesis for gender differences in response to infidelity. BMC Research Notes, 7, 860. doi: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-860Google Scholar
Kato, T. (2017). A review of sex differences and similarities in responses to infidelity: A meta-analytic examination. Behavioral Science Research, 55, 137–149. Sporting information: KL2016–001. Retrieved from http://katolabo.web.fc2.com/KL2016-001.pdfGoogle Scholar
Kato, T. (2021a). Gender differences in response to infidelity types and rival attractiveness. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 36, 368–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kato, T. (2021b). Effect of relationship status on response times to sexual and romantic stimuli among Japanese undergraduates in a memory task. Archives of Sexual Behavior. doi: 10.1007/s10508-021-02149-8Google Scholar
Kuhle, B. X. (2011). Did you have sex with him? Do you love her? An in vivo test of sex differences in jealous interrogations. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 1044–1047.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhle, B. X., Smedley, K. D., & Schmitt, D. P. (2009). Sex differences in the motivation and mitigation of jealousy-induced interrogations. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 499–502.Google Scholar
Mogilski, J. K., Reeve, S. D., Nicolas, S. C. A., Donaldson, S. H., Mitchell, V. E., & Welling, L. L. M. (2019). Jealousy, consent, and compersion within monogamous and consensually non-monogamous romantic relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48, 1811–1828.Google Scholar
Parrott, W. G. (1991). The emotional experiences of envy and jealousy. In Salovey, P. (Ed.), The psychology of jealousy and envy (pp. 3–30). New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2010). A meta-analytic review of research on gender differences in sexuality, 1993-2007. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 21–38.Google Scholar
Pietrzak, R. H., Laird, J. D., Stevens, D. A., & Thompson, N. S. (2002). Sex differences in human jealousy: A coordinated study of forced-choice, continuous rating-scale, and physiological responses on the same subjects. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 83–94.Google Scholar
Rupp, H. A., & Wallen, K. (2008). Sex differences in response to visual sexual stimuli: A review. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 206–218.Google Scholar
Sagarin, B. J. (2005). Reconsidering evolved sex differences in jealousy: Comment on Harris (2003). Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 62–75.Google Scholar
Sagarin, B. J., Becker, D. V., Guadagno, R. E., Wilkinson, W. W., & Nicastle, L. D. (2012). A reproductive threat-based model of evolved sex differences in jealousy. Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 487–503.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sagarin, B. J., Martin, A. L., Coutinho, S. A., Edlund, J. E., Patel, L., Skowronski, J. J., & Zengel, B. (2012). Sex differences in jealousy: A meta-analytic examination. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 595–614.Google Scholar
Scelza, B. A., Prall, S. P., Blumenfield, T., Crittenden, A. N., Gurven, M., Kline, M., … & McElreath, R. (2020). Patterns of paternal investment predict cross-cultural variation in jealous response. Nature Human Behaviour, 4, 20–26.Google Scholar
Schützwohl, A. (2004). Which infidelity type makes you more jealous? Decision strategies in a forced-choice between sexual and emotional infidelity. Evolutionary Psychology, 2, 121–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schützwohl, A. (2005). Sex differences in jealousy: The processing of cues to infidelity. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 288–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schützwohl, A. (2006). Sex differences in jealousy: Information search and cognitive preoccupation. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 285–292.Google Scholar
Schützwohl, A. (2008). The crux of cognitive load: Constraining deliberate and effortful decision processes in romantic jealousy. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 127–132.Google Scholar
Schützwohl, A., & Koch, S. (2004). Sex differences in jealousy: The recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity in personally more and less threatening context conditions. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25, 249–257.Google Scholar
Shackelford, T. K., Buss, D. M., & Bennett, K. (2002). Forgiveness or breakup: Sex differences in responses to a partner’s infidelity. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 299–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symons, D. (1979). The evolution of human sexuality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tafoya, M. A., & Spitzberg, B. H. (2007). The dark side of infidelity: Its nature, prevalence, and communicative functions. In Spitzberg, B. H & Cupach, W. R (Eds.), The dark side of interpersonal communication (2nd ed., pp. 201–242). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Takahashi, H., Matsuura, M., Yahata, N., Koeda, M., Suhara, T., & Okubo, Y. (2006). Men and women show distinct brain activations during imagery of sexual and emotional infidelity. NeuroImage, 32, 1299–1307.Google Scholar
Valentova, J. V., de Moraes, A. C., & Varella, M. A. C. (2020). Gender, sexual orientation and type of relationship influence individual differences in jealousy: A large Brazilian sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 157, 109805. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.109805Google Scholar
Wade, T. J., & Fowler, K. (2006). Sex differences in responses to sexual and emotional infidelity: Considerations of rival attractiveness and financial status. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 37–50.Google Scholar
Walter, K. V., Conroy-Beam, D., Buss, D. M., Asao, K., Sorokowska, A., Sorokowski, P., … & Zupančič, M. (2020). Sex differences in mate preferences across 45 countries: A large-scale replication. Psychological Science, 31, 408–423.Google Scholar
Walum, H., Larsson, H., Westberg, L., Lichtenstein, P., & Magnusson, P. K. (2013). Sex differences in jealousy: A population-based twin study in Sweden. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 16, 941–947.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×