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Jealousy Is Influenced by Sex of the Individual, Their Partner, and Their Rival

DOI:10.1007/s10508-022-02341-4
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Jaroslava Varella Valentova at University of São Paulo
Jaroslava Varella Valentova
Ana Maria Fernandez at University of Santiago, Chile
Ana Maria Fernandez
Marco Pereira at University of Coimbra
Marco Pereira
Marco Antônio Corrêa Varella at University of São Paulo
Marco Antônio Corrêa Varella
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Abstract and Figures

Jealousy is an affective state activated by a perceived threat to a valued relationship by a third party. On average, males report higher distress about their partner’s sexual extra-pair involvement, while females show higher emotional jealousy. These sex differences are specific to heterosexuals and to contexts with potential reproductive costs. We tested the effect of sex and sexual orientation of the individual, and sex of the partner and potential rival on sexual versus emotional jealousy. Sexual orientation was operationalized as a willingness to form long-term relationships with men, women, or both. Heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual males (N = 416) and females (N = 1328) from Brazil, Chile, and Portugal responded to the Sexual vs. Emotional Jealousy Scale and then ranked their distress to four hypothetical scenarios: sexual or emotional involvement of their partner with a male or a female rival. This is the first study to simultaneously test for an effect of self, partner, and rival sex on jealousy: bisexual individuals responded twice, about a hypothetical female and about a male partner. Individuals were most preoccupied with their partner's emotional relationship with a rival of the same sex as the respondent. Heterosexual males reported higher sexual jealousy than the other groups, but did not differ from bisexual men responding about female partners. Bisexual females were more upset by sexual extra-pair involvement of their female (versus male) partners with a male rival. Thus, jealousy was influenced by sex and sexual orientation of the individuals, sex of the partners, and also by sex of the rivals: same-sex rivals were perceived as most threatening. This suggests that besides being a strategy to maintain a primary relationship, jealousy is particularly sensitive to same-sex competitors, being an intra-sexual competition strategy.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
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Archives of Sexual Behavior (2022) 51:2867–2877
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02341-4
ORIGINAL PAPER
Jealousy Is Influenced bySex oftheIndividual, Their Partner, andTheir
Rival
JaroslavaVarellaValentova1 · AnaMariaFernandez2 · MarcoPereira3 · MarcoAntonioCorreaVarella1
Received: 24 November 2020 / Revised: 5 February 2022 / Accepted: 12 April 2022 / Published online: 20 July 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022
Abstract
Jealousy is an affective state activated by a perceived threat to a valued relationship by a third party. On average, males report
higher distress about their partner’s sexual extra-pair involvement, while females show higher emotional jealousy. These sex
differences are specific to heterosexuals and to contexts with potential reproductive costs. We tested the effect of sex and
sexual orientation of the individual, and sex of the partner and potential rival on sexual versus emotional jealousy. Sexual
orientation was operationalized as a willingness to form long-term relationships with men, women, or both. Heterosexual,
homosexual, and bisexual males (N = 416) and females (N = 1328) from Brazil, Chile, and Portugal responded to the Sexual
vs. Emotional Jealousy Scale and then ranked their distress to four hypothetical scenarios: sexual or emotional involvement
of their partner with a male or a female rival. This is the first study to simultaneously test for an effect of self, partner, and
rival sex on jealousy: bisexual individuals responded twice, about a hypothetical female and about a male partner. Individuals
were most preoccupied with their partner's emotional relationship with a rival of the same sex as the respondent. Heterosexual
males reported higher sexual jealousy than the other groups, but did not differ from bisexual men responding about female
partners. Bisexual females were more upset by sexual extra-pair involvement of their female (versus male) partners with a
male rival. Thus, jealousy was influenced by sex and sexual orientation of the individuals, sex of the partners, and also by
sex of the rivals: same-sex rivals were perceived as most threatening. This suggests that besides being a strategy to maintain
a primary relationship, jealousy is particularly sensitive to same-sex competitors, being an intra-sexual competition strategy.
Keywords Emotion· Infidelity· Jealousy· Relationships· Mate poaching· Sexual orientation
Introduction
Jealousy is an affective state activated by a perceived threat
to a valued relationship by a third party (Buss, 2001; Mar-
tínez-León etal., 2017). This feeling motivates people to
protect and maintain their relationship and/or to compete
with and drive away rivals. Although both members of a
dyad face a potential loss when confronted with an extra-
pair involvement of their partner, there are some systematic
sex differences in jealousy. In particular, males more fre-
quently than females report being more distressed by sexual
than by emotional extra-pair involvement of their partners
(Buss, 2018; Edlund & Sagarin, 2017; Sagarin etal., 2012;
Valentova, 2019). From the evolutionary perspective, males
are more concerned with possible costs from investing in
non-biological offspring that may result from their female
partner’s sexual extra-pair involvement, whereas females
are more concerned with emotional extra-pair involvement
of their partners, arguably because emotional involvement
would relocate their partner’s investments to a third person
(Buss, 2001).
However, there is substantial intra-sexual variability in
sexual versus emotional jealousy, and different personal,
interpersonal, and contextual settings can affect experiences
of emotional and sexual jealousy (Martínez-León etal., 2017;
Valentova, 2019). Although still understudied, characteristics
of the rival are among the factors that modulate the jeal-
ous response (Dijkstra & Buunk, 1998, 2002; Sagarin etal.,
* Jaroslava Varella Valentova
jaroslava@usp.br
1 Department ofExperimental Psychology, Institute
ofPsychology, University ofSao Paulo, Av. Professor Mello
de Morais, 1721 - Butantã, SãoPaulo, SP05508-030, Brazil
2 School ofPsychology, University ofSantiago de Chile,
SantiagodeChile, Chile
3 Faculty ofPsychology andEducational Sciences, University
ofCoimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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