The disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to sexual and emotional infidelity

Abstract

The present study tests two predictions derived from the evolutionary view of jealousy. (1) For men the disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to sexual infidelity is more difficult than from neutral or emotional infidelity cues. Conversely, for women the disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to emotional infidelity is more difficult than from neutral or sexual infidelity cues. (2) These difficulties are especially pronounced in participants currently involved in a committed romantic relationship. In each trial either an affectively neutral, an emotional infidelity or sexual infidelity distractor was simultaneously presented with a target sentence. The last trial was followed by a recall test for the targets and distractors. The results confirmed both predictions. Implications and limitations of the present study are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.