Evaluation of rivals in jealousy evoking situations

Prof. dr. A.P. Buunk

Results 2006

In our opinion, the fact that participants are able to evaluate rivals outside conscious awareness, and their subsequent jealous reactions are an indication of the fact that responses of men and women to rivals are 'hardwired' in the human brain. That is, jealous reactions of men and women to socially dominant and physically attractive rivals seem to be automatic. We have found this sex-specific response in a number of studies, using subliminal priming with words, line-drawings or photographs.

Hypotheses from evolutionary psychology were tested, specifically the hypotheses that women would be more jealous after (subliminal) exposure to a physically attractive rival, and men after exposure to a socially dominant rival. Several studies using a subliminal priming paradigm, in which participants were exposed to stimuli (either in the form of words or in the form of line drawings) for only 17 – 60 milliseconds, have yielded results that indicate that participants are able to evaluate rivals without being aware of doing so.

Although they indicated they had not seen the stimuli, men report more jealousy after exposure to a socially dominant rival, and women after exposure to a physically attractive rival. Both men and women also report more jealousy after they have been exposed (for only 60 ms) to a line drawing of a figure with an attractive body shape (either waist-to-hip or shoulder-to-hip ratio) than after they have been exposed to a figure with an unattractive body shape. Moreover, we collected data in 2006 on participants currently in a relationship that suggests that women are more jealous after priming with a photograph of an attractive female face than after priming with an unattractive female face. For men, this pattern of results was not found.

These results seem to indicate that people are able to judge the threat a rival poses to their relationship without being aware of doing so, and that they respond in line with hypotheses derived from evolutionary psychology. Moreover, results also indicate that (female) hormones may play a role in evaluation of rivals and jealousy. More experiments need to be conducted to investigate whether women who are in the fertile period of their cycle are more sensitive to the presence of rivals, and especially to physically attractive rivals. The role of male testosterone levels also could be investigated.