By: Haley Andrews, Elizabeth Haralambos , Andrea Hollingshead

1. Penke, L. & Asendorpf, J.B. (2008). Evidence for Conditional Sex Differences in Emotional but Not in Sexual Jealousy at the Automatic Level of Cognitive Processing. European Journal of Personality, 22:3-30. By: Haley Andrews, Elizabeth Haralambos, Andrea Hollingshead

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLfetNvF9kE

6. Introduction: Debate over sex differences in romantic jealousy • Classic evolutionary hypothesis: men and women react differently to sexual and emotional infidelity because these two types of infidelity posed different adaptive problems • Men: excepted more jealous of sexual infidelity than women to minimize investment in genetically unrelated offspring • Women: expected more jealous of emotional infidelity than men to minimize loss of parental investment in their offspring • “Jealousy as a specific ‘innate’ module hypothesis”: two independently derived hypotheses, one for sexual and one for emotional infidelity, where one, none, or both may be true

7. Introduction: Debate over sex differences in romantic jealousy • “Social cognitive theory of jealousy”: jealousy is the result of an evolved, but domain general appraisal mechanism; this mechanism is sensitive to all kinds of threats posed by rivals • jealousy is aroused when a rival outdoes someone in domains that are particularly important to the self • this theory does not expect universal sex differences in sexual and emotional jealousy • they may or may not exist, depending on culturally determined gender roles

8. Introduction: Closer look at the two evolutionary hypotheses • Both are weak tests of evolutionary hypotheses because they confound sex differences in sexual jealousy and emotional jealousy • Four cases of a sex by type of infidelity • men react more jealous to sexual infidelity than women • women react more jealous to emotional infidelity than men • men react more jealous to sexual infidelity than to emotional infidelity • women react more jealous to emotional infidelity than to sexual infidelity • Forced-choice only tests whether one of the two evolutionary hypotheses or both are supported; it does not test whether both hypotheses are confirmed • Social-cognitive theory does not predict any specific between-sex or within-sex differences in emotional or sexual jealousy

9. Introduction: The necessity to study cognitive processes • Evolutionary psychology aim: to study the design of cognitive modules as the mediating mechanisms between evolution and adaptive behavior • This requires an integration of the study of ultimate evolved functions and proximate cognitive processes • Spontaneity versus deliberation in making a decision. Cues of emotional and sexual infidelity is important, as well as the extent to which emotional versus sexual infidelity violate gender roles within a specific culture

10. Introduction: Empirical evidence • Forced-choice paradigm • Separate ratings of sexual and emotional infidelity • Cognitive processing of infidelity cues

11. The Present Study • Aim was to test the two evolutionary hypotheses using a combination of • Forced-choice method • Continuous emotion ratings • Cognitive processes • Automaticity of responses in the forced-choice task • Decision rating • Hypotheses • The classic sex difference in the forced-choice paradigm under both conditions, particularly under cognitive constraint • Women rate emotional infidelity situations more negatively than men, but that men do not rate sexual infidelity situations more negatively than women • Women do not rate emotional infidelity cues faster than men, but that men do not process sexual infidelity cues faster than women

12. The Present Study: Method • Sample • 284 German native speakers between 20-30 years of age who had been in a committed a relationship. • Recruited in a large city by flyers and postings in various public places

13. The Present Study: Design • Forced choice with cognitive constraint and the instruction to respond spontaneously • Participants are given a string of 6 digits, in which they have to recall at the end of their spontaneous decision of which option is more upsetting than the other • Continuous emotion ratings with the instruction to vividly imagine each situation • Rather than comparing one situation to another, they rate each scenario based on anger, anxiety, and humiliation on a scale • Deliberate forced-choice dilemmas with the instruction to vividly imagine each alternative and take enough time for the decision • They are again forced to choose which option is more stressful when compared to another, except without the constraint of the digit recall.

14. Results • Forced-choice under cognitive constraint • For all choices of all participants, a significant, moderately large effect confirmed that more women (77%) than men (63%) judged emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. • Sex and education interactions • The less educated participants showed a stronger sex difference where as the better educated participants showed only a small significant sex difference. • Sex differences in the reaction times • Decisions for sexual infidelity were as fast as decisions for emtional jealousy and men and women did not differ in their overall decision times

15. Results • Emotion Ratings • There was a significant, moderately large main effect of sex, with women rating the infidelity situations overall more negatively than men. • Post hoc t tests showed a significant effect of sex for ratings of jealousy, anxiety, and humiliation but not for anger. • Women reported overall more negative emotions for both sexual and emotional infidelity, with a slightly larger effect size for emotional jealousy. • Post hoc t tests showed that for the less educated participants, the sex difference for sexual infidelity was small and not significant, but the sex difference for emotional infidelity was significant and fairly large. • The education effect was mainly driven by stronger emotional jealousy of less educated women.

16. Results • Forced-choice with deliberation • A significant, moderately large effect confirmed that more women than men judged emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. • Forced- choice task summary • The sex difference for the classic forced-choice task is due to fast, spontaneous decisions, rather than due to long deliberation and that it is more pronounced in less educated participants.

17. Results • Relationship Effects • All participants had at least once experienced a committed, sexual relationship that lasted at least 1 month. • Neither the total number of committed sexual relationships the participants had so far, nor the duration of the current relationships of the paired participants were significantly correlated with any of the jealousy measures.

18. Discussion • Three main findings; two confirmed the hypotheses derived from previous literature • Women are more likely than men to choose emotional infidelity over sexual jealousy as the more distressing alternative when they are forced to make a choice • The sex difference in the forced-choice paradigm is almost exclusively driven by sex differences in emotional jealousy. Women reported more negative emotions than men for both sexual and emotional infidelity. • Attained education level turned out to be a strong moderator of the sex difference in sexual versus emotional jealousy.

19. Discussion • Sexual Jealousy • Early evolutionary discussions of jealousy focused on male sexual jealousy as an evolved adaptation to minimize cuckoldry. The evidence that human males react more jealous to a mate’s sexual infidelity than human females is mixed. • Men have evolved a high sensitivity for sexual infidelity, this tendency seems to interact with so many other factors that the resulting sex differences is minimal.

20. Discussion • Emotional Jealousy • The results for emotional jealousy consistently suggested that women react more jealous to emotional infidelity than men. • These findings suggest that the robust sex difference in the classic forced-choice paradigm is mainly driven by a sex difference in emotional jealousy. • Environmental Influences • Concerning cognitive processing, the effect of educational level on sex differences in emotional jealousy was found in all three conditions.

21. Critical Review Items:Interesting Points • Education played an important role: stronger emotional jealousy of less educated women • Fixed order of conditions important: asking participants for spontaneous decisions after deliberative decisions would skew results • The study aims to benefit evolutionary psychology: hopes to inspire detailed studies of proximate cognitive mechanisms

22. Critical Review Items: Weaknesses • Only included young adults, who might weigh emotional vs. sexual infidelity more strongly according to early developmental environments, than older adults, who might weigh them according to experience • Limited to the German culture • Dilemmas were hypothetical: higher level cognitive processes might be necessary to anticipate the threat of infidelity. However, memory rather than description would cause bias.

23. Test Questions • The aim of the present study was to • A) disprove previous findings • B) to test the two evolutionary hypotheses using the forced choice method • C) to test the two evolutionary hypotheses using continuous emotion ratings • D) a combination of b and c

24. Test Questions • To test the two evolutionary hypotheses, researchers have used a forced-choice paradigm. What is the purpose of the forced-choice paradigm? • A) participants rate how they feel about dilemmas • B) participants take their time to reflect on whether they are more jealous of emotional or sexual jealousy • C) participants are confronted with dilemmas that contrast hypothetical situations of emotional and sexual infidelity, and they choose the more distressing.

25. Test Questions • What was one of the differences between the forced-choice with cognitive constraint condition and the forced-choice with deliberation condition? • A) the hypothetical situations were different in each condition • B) the forced-choice with cognitive constraint condition included a six digit series that participants were instructed to recall once they finished reading through the dilemmas • C) the forced-choice with deliberation condition asked participants to rate their emotions of anger, anxiety, jealousy, and humiliation on a 5-point scale in addition to reading the dilemmas

26. Test Questions • The classic evolutionary hypothesis assumes that men and women react differently to sexual and emotional infidelity because these two types of infidelity posed different adaptive problems. (T/F) • All participants in the study were not in a serious committed relationship. (T/F) • Participants in the forced-choice with deliberation condition were presented with hypothetical situations of emotional and sexual infidelity for the first time. (T/F)