Jealousy In Response Research Articles

Factors that Influence People’s Beliefs About Men’s and Women’s Jealousy Responses

This study examines what beliefs people hold about other men’s and women’s reaction to infidelity and how related these beliefs are to one’s own jealousy response and to various socio-cultural influences. This novel approach was examined in a Facebook snowball sample (N = 1213) who responded to three infidelity scenarios regarding what aspect of infidelity (emotional or sexual) they believed would make men and women more jealous and then what aspect would make themselves more jealous. The results suggest that both men and women believed men would be more upset by the sexual aspect of infidelity and that women would be more upset by the emotional aspect (i.e., falling in love). Own jealousy responses in men and women were strongly associated with beliefs about same-sex responses to infidelity and showed moderate association with beliefs about opposite-sex responses. Self-reported perceptions of cues to infidelity and knowledge from various sources about what (1) may be cues to infidelity and (2) may be typical reactions to infidelity were unrelated to beliefs about men’s and women’s jealousy responses and to own jealousy responses. We discuss whether beliefs about men’s and women’s jealousy responses may be culturally transmitted or more likely involve a dual model consisting of (a) reflection of own jealousy responses with (b) some cross-sex insights into jealousy reactions in men and women. The findings suggest that there may be evolved psychological adaptations for jealousy beliefs that extend to others of same and opposite sex.

Differentiation of Self, Forgiveness, Jealousy, and Conflict Resolution Responses among Married Individuals: The Mediating Role of Relationship Satisfaction, Relationship Adjustment, and Emotional Dependency

Differentiation of Self, Forgiveness, Jealousy, and Conflict Resolution Responses among Married Individuals: The Mediating Role of Relationship Satisfaction, Relationship Adjustment, and Emotional Dependency

Investigating the emergence of sex differences in jealousy responses in a large community sample from an evolutionary perspective

Sex differences in jealousy responses to sexual and emotional infidelity are robust in samples of heterosexual adults, especially in more gender egalitarian nations. However, investigations of when and how these differences develop have been scant. We applied two forced choice infidelity scenarios in a large community sample of high school students (age 16–19, N = 1266). In line with previous findings on adults using the forced choice paradigm, adolescent males found the sexual aspect of imagined infidelity more distressing than adolescent females did. Nevertheless, there was no effect of age on the jealousy responses, and age did not moderate the sex difference. There were neither any effects of three covariates (having had first sexual intercourse, being in a committed romantic relationship, and sociosexuality), neither as markers of pubertal maturation nor as psychosocial environmental stimuli. Future research needs to investigate even younger samples in order to specify at what age the sex difference in jealousy responses emerges.

Siblings’ Appraisals of Fairness and Jealousy in Response to Parental Differential Treatment: Longitudinal Links to Mexican-Origin Emerging Adults’ Adjustment

Parents’ differential treatment (PDT) and their children’s appraisals of its fairness have been linked to adjustment across childhood and adolescence, primarily in Anglo American families. We extend this literature by studying Mexican-origin siblings’ appraisals of PDT fairness and jealousy toward siblings and their longitudinal links with emerging adult adjustment. Siblings’ familism values, sibling dyad gender constellation, and birth order were examined as moderators of these linkages. Participants were mothers, fathers, and two siblings from 246 Mexican-origin families who completed home interviews at three points in time across 8 years. Appraisals of mothers’ and fathers’ fairness in late adolescence (younger siblings)/emerging adulthood (older siblings) predicted siblings’ depressive symptoms 2 years later, but no relations emerged with jealousy. Familism values and sibling dyad gender constellation did not moderate these associations. Mothers’ and fathers’ differential conflict in early-/mid-adolescence predicted siblings’ risky behaviors in emerging adulthood. Discussion highlights the importance of PDT dynamics for emerging adults’ adjustment.

Male Sexual Jealousy: Lost Paternity Opportunities?

Numerous studies have shown that men experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the sexual aspects of an infidelity (relative to women), whereas women experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the emotional aspects of an infidelity (relative to men). The traditional explanation for this relationship suggests that men experience this greater level of jealousy due to threats of a loss of paternal certainty. In this article, we present three studies that demonstrate that men's differentially greater jealousy occurs in response to situations that threaten paternity opportunities. These results suggest that a loss of perceived paternity opportunities is the ultimate origin of men's increased jealousy in response to sexual infidelity.

Author Reply: What Jealousy Can Tell Us About Theories of Emotion

We clarify aspects of our Dynamic Functional Model of Jealousy in response to D’Arms (2018) and Stets (2018). Our model proposes that jealousy is an evolved motivational state that arises over threat by a rival to one’s relationship or some aspect of one’s relationship (such as attention, affection, or love). The formation or loss of relationships rarely occurs instantaneously. Therefore, we argue that jealousy, whose goal is to remove or reduce the rival threat, can occur over a longer time course than is often assumed in theories of specific emotions. We further suggest that other emotions such as grief and fear also can occur over extended periods. This raises challenges for emotion theories that assume that emotions must be short-lived.

Modeling the interplay between narcissism, relational motives, and jealousy-induced responses to infidelity threat

Threat-based accounts of narcissism postulate enhanced worrying and negative emotion following threat. The present study examined whether the psychological process by which people experience and respond to jealousy-inducing threats varies according to their narcissism subtype. Participants completed measures of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, simulated sexual and emotional infidelity scenarios, and reported their anticipated (a) motives (power/control, relational security, self-esteem compensation, uncertainty minimization) and (b) jealousy responses (worrying, negative emotions, and behavioral tactics). Path modeling conditionally supported threat-based accounts for the vulnerable subtype but not for the grandiose subtype. Grandiose narcissism (marginally) inversely related to a composite of worrying and negative emotion but (directly) positively related to power/control motives and, in turn, attacking/restricting tactics. Effects of vulnerable narcissism on jealousy outcomes depended on infidelity type. Vis-à-vis emotional infidelity, vulnerable narcissism positively related to worrying and negative emotion and, in turn, related to heightened pursuit of all motives, some of which uniquely predicted heightened attacking/restricting tactics, suppressed attacking/restricting tactics, and heightened enhancing tactics. Vis-à-vis sexual infidelity, effects of vulnerable narcissism mimicked those of grandiose narcissism. In jealousy contexts, extant threat-based accounts of narcissism appear inadequate for explaining the grandiose subtype and evidently bounded for explaining the vulnerable subtype.

Attachment and Jealousy: Understanding the Dynamic Experience of Jealousy Using the Response Escalation Paradigm.

Jealousy is a complex, dynamic experience that unfolds over time in relationship-threatening situations. Prior research has used retrospective reports that cannot disentangle initial levels and change in jealousy in response to escalating threat. In three studies, we examined responses to the Response Escalation Paradigm (REP)-a 5-stage hypothetical scenario in which individuals are exposed to increasing levels of relationship threat-as a function of attachment orientations. Highly anxious individuals exhibited hypervigilant, slow escalation response patterns, interfered earlier in the REP, felt more jealousy, sadness, and worry when they interfered, and wanted to engage in more vigilant, destructive, and passive behaviors aimed at their partner. Highly avoidant individuals felt more anger when they interfered in the REP and wanted to engage in more partner-focused, destructive behaviors. The REP offers a dynamic method for inducing and examining jealousy and introduces a novel approach to studying other emotional experiences.

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.

Relationship among Facebook jealousy, aggression, and personal and relationship variables

ABSTRACTIn the last decade, jealousy research has focused on the Facebook jealousy; however, few studies have identified its relationship to aggression. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Facebook jealousy and aggression, and some personal and relational variables. A sample of 846 participants (516 females, 330 males) aged 18–66 years from Turkey completed the Facebook Jealousy Questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire. From an evolutionary perspective, gender differences in jealousy could be explained through evolution-based differences in parental investment, and that males exhibit increased jealousy in response to sexual infidelity, whereas females become jealous in response to emotional infidelity. A forced-choice question (with a choice of sexual infidelity or emotional infidelity as the more jealousy evoking) was asked to the participants in order to determine gender differences on sexual and emotional jealousy. Results indicated no significant gender differences in Facebook Jealousy scores. Self-esteem and age negatively predicted Facebook jealousy. All aggression sub-types significantly predicted Facebook jealousy. Consistent with the evolutionary perspective and previous evidence, chi-square analysis showed that males’ and females’ responses to the forced-choice question differ significantly.

Cognitive Jealousy and Constructive Communication: The Role of Perceived Partner Maintenance and Uncertainty

The current study focused on how perceptions of a partner’s relational maintenance behavior relate to the degree to which an individual reports experiencing cognitive jealousy and using constructive communicative responses to jealousy. Additionally, this study examined the mediating role of relationship uncertainty in the associations between maintenance and cognitive jealousy, as well as maintenance and constructive responses. Participants were 192 individuals who were involved in a romantic relationship who completed surveys about their partners’ relational maintenance behaviors and their own levels of cognitive jealousy, relationship uncertainty, and constructive responses. Results revealed perceived partner relational maintenance behaviors were negatively associated with cognitive jealousy and relationship uncertainty. Additionally, relationship uncertainty mediated the associations between maintenance and cognitive jealousy, integrative communication, and compensatory restoration.

Green on the Screen: Types of Jealousy and Communicative Responses to Jealousy in Romantic Comedies

ABSTRACTRomantic jealousy is common within romantic relationships, yet there is a lack of research on media portrayals of romantic jealousy and subsequent communicative responses to jealousy. Motivated by script theory and social cognitive theory, this study is a content analysis of types of romantic jealousy and communicative responses to jealousy in the 51 top-grossing romantic comedies released between 2002 and 2014. Results indicate that reactive jealousy was the most frequently depicted type of romantic jealousy in these movies, and destructive communication was the most common response. Furthermore, the type of romantic jealousy was significantly related to the type of communicative response the character employed, and females were more likely to use rival-focused communicative responses than males.

Investigations of a reproductive processing advantage in memory.

Previous work has shown that processing words for their survival value improves memory. If this survival processing effect reflects an evolutionary adaptation in memory, processing words for their reproductive value should also improve memory. Across three experiments, participants rated words for their relevance in reproductive scenarios. In Experiment 1, participants rated adjectives (traits) for their relevance in finding a mate, evaluating a coworker, or in terms of their pleasantness. Mate processing produced better memory than pleasantness ratings, but not coworker processing. In Experiment 2, participants rated traits for their relevance in detecting sexual or emotional infidelity. Neither processing condition produced better memory compared to pleasantness ratings, but there were several unpredicted interactions involving participant sex and jealousy responses. In Experiment 3, participants rated gifts for their appropriateness in a romantic date or a housewarming party, or in terms of their pleasantness. Date processing and housewarming processing both improved recall compared to pleasantness rating, but date processing and housewarming processing did not produce differences compared to each other. Overall, the current study demonstrates very little evidence of a reproductive processing effect, and nothing approaching the magnitude of previous work on the survival processing effect.

Jealousy increased by induced relative left frontal cortical activity.

Asymmetric frontal cortical activity may be one key to the process linking social exclusion to jealous feelings. The current research examined the causal role of asymmetric frontal brain activity in modulating jealousy in response to social exclusion. Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) over the frontal cortex to manipulate asymmetric frontal cortical activity was combined with a modified version of the Cyberball paradigm designed to induce jealousy. After receiving 15 min of tDCS, participants were excluded by a desired partner and reported how jealous they felt. Among individuals who were excluded, tDCS to increase relative left frontal cortical activity caused greater levels of self-reported jealousy compared to tDCS to increase relative right frontal cortical activity or sham stimulation. Limitations concerning the specificity of this effect and implications for the role of the asymmetric prefrontal cortical activity in motivated behaviors are discussed.

Jealousy: Evidence of strong sex differences using both forced choice and continuous measure paradigms

Despite some controversy about sex differences in jealousy, data largely support that sex differences studied with the forced choice (FC) paradigm are robust: Men, relative to women, report greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity than in response to emotional infidelity. Corresponding sex differences for continuous measures of jealousy typically have been less robust in the literature. A large sample of Norwegian students (N=1074) randomly responded to either FC or continuous measure questionnaires covering four infidelity scenarios. Large, comparable, theoretically-predicted sex differences were evident for both FC and continuous measures. Relationship status, infidelity experiences, and question order manipulation (activation) did not consistently influence the sex differences for either measure, nor did individual differences in sociosexual orientation or relationship commitment. These large sex differences are especially noteworthy as they emerge from a highly egalitarian nation with high paternal investment expectancy, and because they contradict social role theories that predict a diminution of psychological sex differences as gender economic equality increases.

In search of moderators of sex differences in forced-choice jealousy responses: Effects of 2D:4D digit ratio and relationship infidelity experiences

In this study, we examined how jealousy responses in men and women were affected by 2D:4D digit ratio, a correlate of prenatal testosterone exposure, and actual infidelity experiences using the forced-choice paradigm. Extending the previous literature on responses to infidelity, we examined whether specific types of infidelity and whether active manipulation of memories of actual infidelity experiences affected jealousy responses. We were able to replicate the predicted sex differences in jealousy responses in a sample of heterosexual Norwegian students with committed relationship experiences (N = 480). Further, we found that 2D:4D ratio was negatively associated with sexual jealousy, but as predicted, this effect was fully accounted for by sex of respondent. Men reported more sexual jealousy than women regardless of experiencing actual infidelity and regardless of infidelity type. Actual infidelity experiences produced more pronounced sex-typical differences when memories of these were activated through question order manipulation. Suggestions for future studies on jealousy responses to infidelity experiences are made.

Examining how gender and emoticons influence Facebook jealousy.

Facebook use among young adults is widespread, and understanding how it affects romantic relationships has practical, real world implications. Both gender and amount of time spent on Facebook have been associated with online jealousy. Emoticons can be used online to clarify messages and are often used in mixed gender interactions. A series of studies was used to examine whether gender and emoticons interacted to influence Facebook jealousy. Interestingly, results differed based on qualitative and quantitative responses. With quantitative responses, a main effect was found only for gender. Females displayed more Facebook jealousy than males. With qualitative responses, an interaction was found. Males were more jealous when a winking emoticon was present, while females were more jealous when no emoticon was present. This research supports evolutionary work in suggesting that specific cues may differentially influence jealousy responses in males and females. It should be mentioned that although differences were noticed, they may be contingent upon the research methods utilized and that mixed methods may best address issues involving jealousy in young adults.

Private flirts, public friends: Understanding romantic jealousy responses to an ambiguous social network site message as a function of message access exclusivity

Research indicates that social network site use can amplify romantic jealousy, but studies have yet to identify the causes a for these reactions. An experiment was conducted to examine how message exclusivity affects jealousy responses to a hypothetical scenario. A total of 191 undergraduates were randomly assigned to imagine their potential emotional and behavioral responses to an ambiguous message given by their partner to a romantic rival, either in a private Facebook message (high exclusivity) or posted publicly as a message on the rival’s Facebook wall (low exclusivity). Those participants reading about high exclusivity messages reported more negative emotion and were more likely to imagine being confrontational. Threat perception and negative emotion both predicted confrontational behavior. There was an indirect effect of message access exclusivity on threat perception through negative emotion; there was no direct association between exclusivity and threat perception. This research has implications for the study of message processing on social network sites and the conceptualization of masspersonal communication.

Infant Physiological and Behavioral Responses to a Jealousy Provoking Condition

Recent research has demonstrated a relationship between infants' tonic electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns and approach‐style jealousy responses (Mize & Jones, ). Although it has been found that adults exhibit approach‐style neural activity during jealousy paradigms (Harmon‐Jones, Peterson, and Harris, ), parallel research on neural activity during a jealousy paradigm in infants is lacking from the literature base. The purpose of the current research is to examine EEG patterns of 35 infants (Mean age = 8.92 months old) in a social‐rival paradigm designed to elicit jealousy responses. Consistent with past research, infants demonstrated more approach‐style, jealousy‐related behaviors when their mothers attended to a social‐rival than to a nonsocial rival. Additionally, infants demonstrated approach‐style anterior EEG activity during the social‐rival condition, a pattern that is associated with jealousy. The current findings suggest that the physiological underpinnings for the emotions that motivate the protection of important dyadic relationships are in place early in ontogeny. Therefore, jealousy‐type behaviors and physiological responses begin to be observable as early as 9‐months‐old when maternal attention is lost to a social‐rival.

Sex Differences in Jealousy: A Population-Based Twin Study in Sweden

According to the theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy, the challenge for women to ensure paternal investment increased their jealousy response to emotional infidelity, whereas paternal uncertainty exerted selective pressures that shaped men to become more distressed by sexual infidelity. Several studies have investigated whether the effect of these sexually dimorphic selection pressures can be detected in contemporary human populations, with conflicting results. To date, no genetically informed studies of sex differences in jealousy have been conducted. We used data from the Screening Across the Lifespan of Twins Younger (SALTY) sample, containing information concerning self-rated jealousy from 3,197 complete twin pairs collected by the Swedish Twin Registry. Intra-class correlations and structural equation models were used to assess the genetic influence on jealousy and to investigate sex differences at genetic level. We saw a highly significant sex effect on the relationship between infidelity types, indicating that men, relative to women, reported greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity than in response to emotional infidelity. The twin models revealed significant heritabilities for both sexual (32%) and emotional (26%) jealousy. The heritabilities were of a similar magnitude in both sexes, and no qualitative sex differences could be detected. We show for the first time that variance in jealousy is to some extent explained by genetic factors. Even though our results from the mean value analyses are in line with the theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy, we could not identify any sex differences on a genetic level.