1. Sex Differences in Jealousy: The Effect of Imagination Sarah Strout, James Laird, Ph. D., Nicholas Thompson, Ph. D., Sarah Bush & Aaron Shafer Study 1 Procedure, cont. Situation 1 was a description of emotional infidelity, asking the participants of they had ever been in a romantic relationship in which the person they were dating was beginning to fall in love with someone else, but definitely not having sexual relations. Situation 2 was a description of sexual infidelity, asking the participants if they had ever dated someone who was having sex with someone else, but definitely not forming an emotional attachment. If the participants reported having had that experience, they were asked to recall the situations as best they could. If they said they had not, they were asked to imagine such a scenario, again to the best of their ability. Conclusion Imagined vs. Real Infidelity Our results from the first study challenge Harris’ suggestion that sex differences disappear when participants recall actual infidelity. Subjects who had experienced emotional infidelity showed the anticipated sex differences in their responses when instructed to choose which type of infidelity was more upsetting. Due to the small number of participants who reported having experienced sexual infidelity, it was not possible to examine whether this effect was true for victims of sexual infidelity as well. Vivid Imagination Our second study supports the hypothesis that participants who vividly imagine the scenario will respond differentially, based on sex. Emotion Rating Scale We did not find the expected sex differences using the emotion rating scale. This consistent finding has lead us to believe that the emotions used on the emotion rating scale are not appropriate to the hypothesis. For instance, the word jealousy is never used on the emotion rating scale. Overall Conclusion Our results indicate that only participants who had experienced infidelity or were instructed to vividly imagine infidelity showed expected sex differences on the forced choice method. This seems to suggest that something about the forced choice method elicits the expected results, but only when participants are or have been exposed to the actual situation. Future Direction Future studies should focus on using multi-dimensional scaling to obtain a measure of relatedness between the word jealousy and other emotion words, for males and females. Research should then include an emotion rating scale appropriate to the hypothesis. Abstract Doubt has been raised about the validity of results that appear to demonstrate that men are more upset by sexual infidelity of a partner, while women are more upset by emotional infidelity. Two studies explored proposed methodological weaknesses of this research. Previous research often has not distinguished participants who had experienced infidelity and those who only imagined their reaction. The first study found the classic results when participants were "forced" to choose which kind of infidelity would be most upsetting, and these differences were more pronounced among participants who were recalling actual infidelity of a partner. The second study explored the impact of the relatively brief, perhaps cursory response that is commonly evoked by questionnaires with a slower, more vivid reliving of the infidelity experience. The classic forced choice results were found, and the vivid imagining produced more powerful effects. Although both studies found the usual sex differences on the forced choice items, in neither were there any sex differences in ratings of individual emotions, suggesting that the forced choice format is important for producing the usual sex differences in jealousy responses. Results The vivid imagination condition did, as predicted, produce much more powerful results in the forced choice measure relative to the no imagination condition ( vivid imagination 2 =11.38, p =.001, no imagination 2 =3.15, p =.08) However, even in the vivid imagination condition there was no significant differences between men and women in their ratings of the specific emotional reactions to the two kinds of infidelity. Introduction Sex differences in jealousy Several studies have reported that since men and women faced different adaptive problems, that men and women differ in the type of infidelity that upsets them most. Men are more upset by a mate’s sexual infidelity and women are more upset by a mate’s emotional infidelity. (Buss, 1992). Harris’ Critique of Jealousy Research Harris (2002) observed that most supporting data have asked participants to “imagine” partners being unfaithful, and she reported that when people described their reactions to real life infidelity, the sex differences disappeared. Harris makes an excellent point, but her method may not have tested the hypothesis successfully. Harris asked participants to recall a partner’s infidelity, and then to report whether they had thought more about the sexual or emotional aspects of the infidelity. Harris did not ask which infidelity was more upsetting. To directly assess whether real versus imagined infidelity makes a difference, our participants were asked first if they had ever experienced emotional or sexual infidelity, and if they had, to report which was more upsetting. Sponsored by funds from the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology, Clark University Clark University Vivid Imagination Readings The scenarios that were read to half of the participants are as follows: Situation 1: Close your eyes and try to visualize what I am going to say to you. Let the characters- you, your partner, and your partner’s new partner- come to life. Now I want you to first visualize every positive characteristic about your partner…take some time with that and really try to bring them to life in your mind. Tell me when you have thought about your partner in depth. Now imagine or remember your partner slowly drifting away to another romantic partner. Please actually visualize your partner falling in love (with out sexual relations) with another person, picture them spending time together, talking, sharing secrets and becoming close to one another. Tell me once you have acted that out or recalled it in your mind. Now please turn the page and fill out the questions and write any other comments/feelings that you may have. Situation 2: Close your eyes and try to visualize what I am going to say to you. Let the characters- you, your partner, and your partner’s new partner- come to life. Now I want you to visualize your partner in a sexually appealing way to you. Take some time to think of your sexual and romantic closeness with this attractive person. Imagine or recall your last sexual encounter with your partner. Tell when you have imagined or recalled this. Now imagine or remember finding out that your sexual partner was now sexually active with someone other than you. Please visualize your partner and that person naked in a bed together engaging in sexual activity. Tell me once you have imagined or recalled this sexual encounter. Now please turn the page and fill out the questions and write any other comments/feelings that you may have. References Buss, D. M., Larsen, R., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, J. (1992). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolution, physiology, and psychology. Psychological Science, 3, 251-255. DeSteno, D., Bartlett, M. Y., Braverman, J., & Salovey, P. (2002). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolutionary Mechanism or Artifact of Measurement? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1103-1116. Harris, C. R. (2002). Sexual and romantic jealousy in homosexuals and heterosexuals. Psychological Science, 13, 7-12. Pietrzak, R. H., Laird, J. D., Stevens, D. A. & Thompson, N. S. (2002). Sex differences in human jealousy: A coordinated study of forced-choice, continuous rating-scale, and physiological responses Evolution & Human Behavior, 23 on the same subjects., 83-94. Study 2 Participants Participants included ninety-seven undergraduate students at Clark University. Forty-four participants were female and fifty-three were male ranging from the ages of seventeen to twenty two. Procedure Half of the participants received the questionnaire to fill out independently. The other half received the same questionnaire but first listened to a vivid oral recitation of the two scenarios, sexual and emotional infidelity. Questionnaire The questionnaire was comprised of a mood rating task, which consisted of seven 30-point scales labeled with one of seven emotions: anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, rage, betrayal, and vindictiveness. The last question of the questionnaire, derived from the traditional forced-choice methodology, asked the participants to choose which type of infidelity, i.e. emotional or sexual, they considered more upsetting Results The study found classic forced choice results, although the results only approach significance ( 2 =3.67, p =.051). Specifically, females reported being more upset by emotional infidelity and males by sexual infidelity. In addition, subjects who had experienced emotional infidelity showed the anticipated sex differences in their responses when instructed to choose which type of infidelity was more upsetting ( 2 =4.69, p =.03). Those who had not experienced infidelity did not show the sex differences ( 2 =.76, p =.329). The study did not find sex differences in the emotion rating scale questionnaire. The results of this study mimic the results of most studies investigating this phenomenon, that expected sex differences are found by using a method of a forced choice question, but not found in questionnaires using an emotion rating scale. DeSteno, Bartlett, Braverman, & Salovey (2002) point out that as evolved mechanisms are theorized to represent automatic processes the functioning of these mechanisms should not be inhibited under conditions of cognitive constraint. Since the results are found only when participants choices are reduced to two alternatives (forced choice), it may be the case that the result is not an indication of an evolved mechanism but a methodological artifact. DeSteno and others hypothesized that if sex differences in jealousy do not appear under cognitive load, this phenomenon is not an evolved mechanism. Their study found that cognitive load inhibits sex differences. Our lab however, found strong results by evoking vivid, imagined jealousy in the participants, which highlights the possibility that participants, usually college students, may not show expected results because the methods used do not trigger the evolved mechanism. There is a possibility that the mechanism is triggered when the participant vividly recalls or imagines the experience. It is possible that Desteno and others’ results reflect differences in the vividness of experience, which might have been reduced by the cognitive load. To assess this possibility, our second study compared a vivid imagination condition with the usual questionnaire. Study 1 Method Participants Participants included ninety-seven undergraduate students at Clark University. Forty-four were female and fifty-three were male, ranging from the ages of seventeen to twenty-two. Questionnaire The questionnaire was comprised of a mood rating task, which consisted of seven 30-point scales labeled with one of seven emotions: anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, rage, betrayal, and vindictiveness. The last question of the questionnaire, derived from the traditional forced-choice methodology, asked the participants to choose which type of infidelity, i.e. emotional or sexual, they considered more upsetting. Procedure Our survey began by having the participants respond to two jealousy-provoking situations.