Romantic Love and Attentional Biases Toward Attractive Alternatives and Rivals: Long-Term Relationship Maintenance Among Female Chinese College Students

Studies about heterosexual individuals' long-term relationship maintenance have indicated that committed individuals possess evolved psychological mechanisms that help protect their ongoing romantic relationships against threats from attractive others during early stage attentional processing when mating-related motivation is activated. In this study, two experiments tested the relationship maintenance mechanism among committed female college students in the Chinese cultural context under different love priming conditions. Committed Chinese women displayed inattention to attractive alternatives in positive love-scenario priming (Study 1: 114 female undergraduates, age range = 18-26 years), subliminal semantic love priming (Study 2: 110 female undergraduates, age range = 18-25 years), and baseline conditions (Studies 1 and 2). Those with high levels of chronic jealousy showed significantly increased attention to and difficulty disengaging attention from attractive rivals when subliminally primed with love. This provides further evidence, from an Eastern cultural context, for the existence of attentional biases toward attractive alternatives and rivals in early stage attentional processes for relationship maintenance. This research also illustrates the important role of romantic love in maintaining long-term romantic relationships.

Sex Differences in Responses to Emotional and Sexual Infidelity in Dating Relationships

Abstract. This study examined the influence of the type of partner infidelity (sexual vs. emotional) and sex of participant on actual mate abandonment and mate retention behaviors. It was predicted that men would engage in significantly more mate abandonment behaviors after experiencing a physical infidelity and that women would engage in significantly more mate abandonment behaviors after experiencing an emotional infidelity. To test this hypothesis, men and women who had either experienced a sexual or emotional infidelity were recruited and were asked to complete several measures designed to indicate their behavioral responses to the infidelity. The men and women in the study showed the predicted asymmetrical pattern of behavioral choices in response to sexual and emotional infidelity.

Confronting Intrasexual Rivals

The current research sheds light on a physiological mechanism potentially underlying confrontational responses to infidelity. Findings suggest that responses to infidelity threats in adulthood are shaped by hormonally mediated masculinization of the brain in utero. 2D:4D digit ratio (widely regarded as an index of prenatal testosterone exposure) moderated behavioral and endocrinological responses to infidelity threat. After an infidelity prime (but not a control prime), lower (more masculine) 2D:4D was associated with a greater tendency to approach attractive same-sex targets (intrasexual rivals) and with heightened increases in circulating testosterone, a hormone related to a variety of aggressive and confrontational behaviors.

Between-Sex Differences in Romantic Jealousy: Substance or Spin? A Qualitative Analysis

An influential evolutionary account of romantic jealousy proposes that natural selection shaped a specific sexually-dimorphic psychological mechanism in response to relationship threat. However, this account has faced considerable theoretical and methodological criticism and it remains unclear whether putative sex differences in romantic jealousy actually exist and, if they do, whether they are consistent with its predictions. Given the multidimensional nature of romantic jealousy, the current study employed a qualitative design to examine these issues. We report the results of sixteen semi-structured interviews that were conducted with heterosexual men and women with the purpose of exploring the emotions, cognitions and behaviors that formed their subjective, lived experience in response to relationship threat. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed four super-ordinate themes (“threat appraisal”, “emotional episodes”, “sex-specific threat” and “forgive and forget”) and unequivocal sex differences in romantic jealousy consistent with the evolutionary account. Self-esteem, particularly when conceptualized as an index of mate value, emerged as an important proximal mediator for both sexes. However, specific outcomes were dependent upon domains central to the individual's self concept that were primarily sex-specific. The findings are integrated within the context of existing self-esteem and evolutionary theory and future directions for romantic jealousy research are suggested.