Automatic evaluation of rivals in jealousy evoking situations

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Automatic evaluation of rivals in jealousy
evoking situations
Karlijn Massar, Bram Buunk University of
Groningen Mark Dechesne Radboud University
Nijmegen
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Evolutionary psychology jealousy

• Sexual selection
• Mate choice
• Jealousy adaptive

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Rivals

• What makes a rival threatening?
• ?Back to mate choice what makes someone an
  attractive partner, also makes him or her a
  threatening rival
• Sex differences in the rival characteristics that
  evoke jealousy

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Rivaalkenmerken

• What makes men jealous in a rival?
• ? social dominance / status
• What makes women jealous in a rival?
• ? (physical) attractiveness

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Mate Value

• Market value
• Influences the assessment of the threat a rival
  poses

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The present research

• Accurately assessing a rival is crucial
• Rival evaluation is a basic, adaptive process
• It is likely to be an unconscious process
• Subliminal exposure to rivals should also have an
  effect on jealousy
• Mate Value should moderate this effect

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Hypotheses

• Women will report more jealousy after exposure to
  physical attractiveness words
• Men will report more jealousy after exposure to
  social dominance words
• Participants own Mate Value will function as a
  moderator participants with low Mate Value will
  report more jealousy than participants with high
  Mate Value.

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Method Overview

• Mate Value questionnaire
• Manipulation
• 1. Subliminal priming with words related to
  physical attractiveness or social dominance
• 2. Scenario describing someone flirting with
  participants partner
• Dependent variable jealousy-slider

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Method Overview

• Mate Value questionnaire
• Manipulation
• 1. Subliminal priming with words related to
  physical attractiveness or social dominance
• 2. Scenario describing someone flirting with
  participants partner
• Dependent variable jealousy-slider

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Method

• Mate Value Questionnaire (Landolt, Lalumiere
  Quinsey, 1995)
• Examples I get a lot of compliments from people
  of the opposite sex, People of the opposite sex
  indicate they want to have sex with me

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Method Overview

• Mate Value questionnaire
• Manipulation
• 1. Subliminal priming with words related to
  physical attractiveness or social dominance
• 2. Scenario describing someone flirting with
  participants partner
• Dependent variable jealousy-slider

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Method

• Participants make an association task
• 1. Subliminal exposure (17 ms) to a personal
  pronoun he for men, she for women
• 2. Rival characteristics subliminal (17 ms)
  exposure to words relating to either physical
  attractiveness or social dominance

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Method

• Words used in experiment
• ? Physical attractiveness
• beautiful, slender, pretty, sexy
• ? Social dominance
• tough, money, power, success
• Each rival characteristic was presented 5 times,
  making 20 trials for each participant

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Method

• Trial example
• house ? appears for 1.5 seconds
• she ? appears for 17 ms
• pretty ? appears for 17 ms
• tree ? appears for 1.5 seconds
• Are these two words related to each other?

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Method Overview

• Mate Value questionnaire
• Manipulation
• 1. Subliminal priming with words related to
  physical attractiveness or social dominance
• 2. Scenario describing someone flirting with
  participants partner
• Dependent variable jealousy-slider

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Method

• Scenario (version for the men)
• You are at a party with your girlfriend and you
  see an unfamiliar boy flirting with her. You
  notice that she appears to enjoy this and
  responds to it, and that she is also flirting
  with this boy.

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Method Overview

• Mate Value questionnaire
• Manipulation
• 1. Subliminal priming with words related to
  physical attractiveness or social dominance
• 2. Scenario describing someone flirting with
  participants partner
• Dependent variable jealousy-slider

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Method

• Jealousy was measured using a slider
• 0 100
• Not jealous at all very jealous

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Results

• Linear regression
• Predictors Participant sex, rival
  characteristic Mate Value
• Interaction b 7.99, t(66) 2.72, plt.01
• Separate analyses for women and men

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Results Women
attractiveness
social dominance
90
75.86
75.15
78.94
80
70
60
48.51
50
Jealousy (slider)
40
30
20
10
0
low
high
Mate Value
Rival characteristic X Mate Value b7.46,
t(37)1.93 plt.05
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Results Women

• Main effect of rival characteristics
• More jealousy in attractiveness condition
  (M77.35) than in social dominance condition
  (M61.83)
• Interaction with Mate Value
• Low Mate Value more jealousy than high Mate
  Value (M75.46 vs. M 63.73)
• High Mate Value differentiation between rival
  characteristics

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Results Men
Rival characteristics X Mate Value b-8.52,
t(29)-1.95, plt.05
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Results Men

• No main effect of rival characteristics
• No difference in social dominance condition
  (M62.36) and attractiveness condition (M60.56)
• Interaction with Mate Value
• Low Mate Value more jealousy than high Mate
  Value (M66.16 vs M59.37)
• High Mate Value differentiation between rival
  characteristics

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Study 2

• Same paradigm subliminal priming with rival
  characteristics, only words in social dominance
  condition changed
• Womens menstrual cycle was taken into account
  were they fertile at the time the experiment
  was conducted?
• ? Date of experiment date of last menstruation
  cycle phase

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Study 2 Results

• Participant Sex X Rival characteristics
• ANOVA F (1,144) 3.62, plt .05 (one-sided)
• For women Cycle Phase X Rival Characteristics
• ANOVA F (1, 82) 3.35, plt.05, (one-sided)

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Study 2 Menstrual cycle
Women
attractiveness
social dominance
90
81.70
85
80
75.01
71.87
75
70.05
70
jealousy (slider)
65
60
55
50
low
high
Oestrogen level
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Conclusion

• Subliminal exposure to rival characteristics has
  a sex specific effect on subsequent reported
  jealousy
• This suggests that the evaluation of rivals in
  jealousy evoking situations could be an
  unconscious process.

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Conclusion

• Mate value functions as a moderator
• ? Participants with low mate value report more
  jealousy than participants with high mate value
• ? But participants with high mate value
  differentiate between rival characteristics more

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Conclusion

• Study 2
• Womens menstrual cycle has an influence on
  reported jealousy rivals are perceived to be
  more threatening during more fertile periods, and
  especially physically attractive rivals
• N.B. Results without controlling for anti
  conception (e.g. the Pill)

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