Exploring Gender Differences in Romantic Jealousy

When Are Women More Jealous Than Men?
Lizeet Caro
Dominican University

Jealousy is an emotional state that erupts when a valued relationship is being threatened (Buss et al., 1992). Men and women both express jealousy tendencies when they feel their romantic relationships are being threatened. Many researchers have studied sex differences in romantic jealousy to investigate at what particular time do men and women feel the most distressed or jealous. For instance, Bus et al. (1992) and Harris and Christenfeld (1996), found that men feel more distressed when they think their romantic partner is engaging in sexual infidelity, whereas women feel more distressed when they think their romantic partner is emotionally attached to someone else. These findings may be very insightful and useful to many of us who experience jealousy episodes; but importantly, it will allow us to investigate the validity of the evolutionary theory that is used to explain most sex differences. In the following paragraphs, I will describe the evolutionary theory that explains sex differences in jealousy and four related empirical studies. Lastly, I will

comment on the validity of the evolutionary theory in relationship to the data reviewed.
Sex differences have been explained by evolutionary psychologist for many years. Many evolutionary psychologists suggest that these differences have enhanced our survival and reproduction successful for millions of years (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Additionally, evolutionary psychologists propose that sex differences in jealousy are due to problems that each sex faced in the past. For example, men’s jealousy should be triggered by a reproductive affair because they cannot be certain of their paternity. Paternity is a serious problem for men because they do not bear children, and they need to insure that their genes are being passed down to a future generation. In order to ensure that their genes have been passed on, men’s jealousy tactic had to evolve. Men’s jealousy evolved so that they could detect and intervene when threatened by sexual infidelity (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). In contrast to men, women are able to determine their paternity, but they faced a different problem. Women required basic resources to accomplish a successful pregnancy and childbirth. Because women depend on men’s resources, women’s jealousy should be triggered by an emotional affair, than a sexual affair. In order to protect their interests women’s jealousy evolved as well (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Therefore, an evolutionary psychologist would predict that sex differences in jealousy should remain stable. That is, men should always feel more distressed by sexual infidelity, while women should feel always feel more distressed by emotional infidelity. In the following paragraphs, I will review four studies that investigate the effect of sex differences in jealousy.
Buss et al. (1992) were one of a few researchers to investigate romantic jealousy between sex differences in support of the evolutionary theory. In support of the theory, they hypothesized that men and women would differ in romantic jealousy. Buss et al. (1992) measured jealousy differences in men and women by conducting 3 sub-studies. In the first study, jealousy differences were in undergraduate students by using 3 different measuring methods. The first method was a self-report survey. Participants were instructed to imagine a specific scenario, and then to choose the most distressful infidelity scenario between two choices. For instance, “Think of a serious committed romantic relationship that they had in the past, that they currently have, or that they would like to have. Then, they were asked to imagine discovering that their partner is interested in someone else” (Buss et al., 1992). The following question required participants to choose whether they were most distressed by the sexual infidelity scenario or the emotional infidelity scenario. Results of this first study indicated that men were more jealous when asked to think about their partner’s sexual infidelity, while women were more jealous when asked to think about their partner’s emotional infidelity. The second study measured participants’ jealousy responses through physiological measures. In this study, participants’ jealousy levels were measure on three apparatuses. Participants’ electrodermal activity (EDA), pulse rate, and electromyographic activity (EMG) was measured in a laboratory. Participants were attached to each apparatus and asked to imagine the same infidelity scenarios as the first study; in addition, they were asked to try feel the way they would have felt if this would happen to them. These results were similar to the first study’s findings, which were that men had a significant physical response to sexual infidelity, and women had a significant psychological response to emotional infidelity. The last study used a larger sample, 133 men and 176 women, incorporated participants’ committed relationship status. Participants were asked once again, to imagine the same sexual and emotional infidelity scenarios, and to identify whether or not they have even been in a committed romantic relationship before. Results of this last study indicated that men who had been in a committed romantic relationship were significantly more distresses when imagining sexual infidelity. However, women’s levels of distress on emotional infidelity had no significant effect on either end.
Very similar results were found in a study by Harris and Christenfeld (1996) who attempted to extend Buss et al. (1992) findings. Harris and Christenfeld (1996) also measured romantic jealousy between men and women. They hypothesized that men and women would differ in romantic jealousy, and infidelity rational would also differ. In this study, jealousy between men and women was self-report, measured with a survey. Fifty-five participants were men and 82 were women. Participants were asked to complete a survey that measured their relationship attitudes. They were asked to answer a total of 3 questions related to sexual and emotional infidelity. The first question asked participants to imagine the same infidelity scenarios that Buss et al. (1992) used, and to answer the same question that followed. The second question asked participants to rate the likelihood of infidelity on a 5-point Likert scale. Then, participants were asked again to think of a serious romantic relationship and to imagine discovering that their partner is having sexual intercourse with someone else. And to rate how likely they think their partner is in love with that other person (Harris and Christenfeld, 1996). Lastly, they were asked to think of the same infidelity scenario, but this time to rate how likely they think their partner is having sex with that other person (Harris and Christenfeld, 1996). Similarly to Buss et al. (1992) findings, these results indicated that men were more distresses by sexual infidelity because they believed that women only have sex when they are in love, whereas women are more distressed by emotional infidelity because they believed that men can have sex without love. According to these findings, jealousy in men and women depend on their reasoning for infidelity as well.
More recently, DeSteno et al. (2002) conducted an experiment to measure jealousy levels between men and women under manipulated conditions. DeSteno et al. (2002) conducted 2 sub-studies to prove that sex differences in jealousy are not as stable as evolutionary psychologist believe. In the first study, DeSteno et al. (2002) measured jealousy using a survey. The survey contained forced-choice responses on sexual and emotional infidelity, a Likert scale, an agreeableness scale, and a checklist. One hundred and eleven participants completed an online jealousy survey. The survey contained Buss et al. (1992) forced choice responses and seven other jealousy responses. The forced-choice section was obtained directly from Buss et al. (1992). Afterwards, participants were instructed to express their feelings using a 7-point Likert scale; two versions were completed for sexual infidelity scenarios and emotional infidelity scenarios. Participants also completed two versions of an agreeableness scale. Participants indicated their agreeableness on a specific infidelity statement, with a scale ranging from 7 (strongly agreed) to 1 (strongly disagree) (DeSteno et al., 2002). Finally, they were instructed to check the adjectives that best described how they were feeling, such as angry, jealous, worried, etc. (DeSteno et al., 2002). Results of this first study indicated that levels of jealousy between men and women only exist when participants were forced to choose one infidelity versus the other. However, there was no significant effect of jealousy levels on the other alternative measurements. In fact, both men and women reported more distress in sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. Furthermore, the second study measured the effect of mental distraction on jealousy levels. New participants were randomly assigned to either a cognitive load condition or a control condition. Participants in the cognitive load condition were asked to remember a string of digits, respond to preference questions related to their partner’s actions, and then recall the string of digits. Whereas, participants in the control condition were simply told to answer a series of questions. Results in the second study indicated that evolution-predicted sex difference (ESD) is not due to evolutionary mechanisms, instead it’s due to the effort we make when making decisions. In other words, women are more likely to feel more distressed about emotional infidelity only when they are able to carefully consider it as a choice.
In support of DeSteno et al. (2002) findings, Carpenter (2012) conducted a meta-analysis that included previous studies to measure a mean effect of romantic jealousy between sexes. Additionally, Carpenter (2012) wanted to examine if the effect differed across cultures. Communication and Mass Media Complete and PsychINFO was used to locate the articles in this mate-analysis. To narrow the results, Carpenter (2012) used the search word “infidelity”. In total, 172 effect sizes were coded by forced-choice measures, continues measures, student sample (students or not), region (U.S. or international), sexual orientation (gay and lesbian or heterosexual), and sample size. Studies were also coded by whether or not they used the forced-choice measures. Several statistical analyses were conducted between scenario and mediators to calculate effect sizes. Results for this meta-analysis contradicted previous findings, as they indicated that emotional infidelity is more distressful for most of the samples that responded to the force-choice questions. Whereas, samples that responded on a continuous measure reveled that sexual infidelity was more distressing. Furthermore, sexual infidelity was most distressing to men students in the U.S, while emotional infidelity was reported to be more distressful to men in other counties (Carpenter, 2012). In other words, there is no significant different between men and women jealousy between sexual and emotional infidelity unless they are forced to choose one. This demonstrates that the evolutionary theory does not accurately support sex difference in romantic jealousy.
Overall, it appears that there are mixed findings about sex differences in jealousy, which suggest that the evolutionary theory may not be the only theory to explain sex differences. It’s important to recognize that the evolutionary theory has been explaining sex differences for many years and that researchers, such as Bus et al. (1992) and Harris and Christenfeld (1996), have found supporting evidence on this theory. However, Carpenter (2012) has recently demonstrated in a meta-analysis that there is no significant sex difference on jealousy when combining several studies’ results. Women are not more likely to feel jealous by emotional infidelity, and men are not more likely to feel jealous by sexual infidelity as evolutionary psychologist have stated in the past. Sex differences in jealousy only appear to exist when men and women are forced to choose the most distressful infidelity dilemma. Therefore, sex differences in jealousy are not solely explained by on evolutionary adaptation, but can also be explained by the social-cognitive theory. And for that reason, the evolutionary theory does not appear to accurately explain sex difference in jealousy. 
References
Buss, D.M., Larsen, R.J., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, J.

(1992). SEX DIFFERENCES IN JEAOUSY: Evolution, Physiology, and Psychology. Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 3(4), 252-255.
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(1), 25-37.
Cervone, D., & Pervin, L.A.(2010).Personality:Theory and research (11th ed.).Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
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(5), 1103-1116.
Harris, C. R., & Christenfeld, N. (1996). GENDER, JEALOUSY, REASON. Psychology Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 7(6),

364-366.