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

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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.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Bruno Zaidan for help with data collection in Brazil and Pablo Molina and Belen Castro for their help with data collection in Chile. We are incredibly thankful to Justin Mogilski for professional proofreading and editing of the manuscript and his valuable suggestions.

Funding

JVV was supported by a scholarship granted by The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, 308597/2017–6). Presentation of the results at a congress was supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 18/16500-6). AMF was supported by FONDECYT grant # 1181114 from the National Agency of Research (Anid).

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Authors and Affiliations

  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

    Jaroslava Varella Valentova & Marco Antonio Correa Varella

  2. School of Psychology, University of Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Ana Maria Fernandez

  3. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Marco Pereira

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  1. Jaroslava Varella Valentova
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  2. Ana Maria Fernandez
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  3. Marco Pereira
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  4. Marco Antonio Correa Varella
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design, data collection, and manuscript revisions. Data collection in Brazil was performed by Jaroslava V. Valentova and Marco A. C. Varella, data collection in Chile was performed by Ana M. Fernandez, and data collection in Portugal was performed by Marco Pereira. Jaroslava V. Valentova performed the analyses. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jaroslava V. Valentova, and all authors commented on previous and revised versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jaroslava Varella Valentova.

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All participants provided their informed consent prior to participate in the study.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo (No. 62656716.6.0000.5561).

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Valentova, J.V., Fernandez, A.M., Pereira, M. et al. Jealousy Is Influenced by Sex of the Individual, Their Partner, and Their Rival. Arch Sex Behav 51, 2867–2877 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02341-4

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