Sex Differences in Jealousy

Abstract

Abstract The theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy has emerged as one of evolutionary psychology's most prominent lines of research. In this paper, we offer a 25-year retrospective on the theory. We begin with a review of the theory itself and the statistical implications of the theory. We then discuss many of the prominent challenges to the theory. These challenges include: a suggestion that sex differences in the interpretation of the questions often used in sex difference in jealousy studies confound the results, psychometric concerns regarding the response scales used to assess the sex difference in jealousy, whether actual experiences with infidelity mirror participants’ hypothetical reactions, potential cognitive influences on the sex difference in jealousy, ambiguous results regarding physiological manifestations of the sex difference in jealousy, meta-analyses that reach seemingly different conclusions regarding the existence of the sex difference in jealousy, and moderators (including sexual orientation) that attenuate the sex difference in jealousy. Finally, we evaluate the state of the theory in light of the evidence we review, we consider why researchers from different subfields of psychology appear to have such different interpretations of the evidence for sex differences in jealousy, and we outline recommendations for future research directions.