Sex differences in implicit association and attentional demands for information about infidelity

Original article:

Sex differences in implicit association and attentional demands for information about infidelity

Evolutionary Psychology 5(3): 569-583 Jaime W. Thomson, Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USAShilpa Patel, Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USASteven M. Platek, School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom, splatek@liv.ac.ukTodd K. Shackelford, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, USA

Abstract

Sex differences in reaction to a romantic partner’s infidelity are well documented and are hypothesized to be attributable to sex-specific jealousy mechanisms that solve sex specific adaptive problems. There have been few cognitive-based investigations of jealousy, however. Here we investigated sex differences in implicit processing of jealousy-based information. In Experiment 1, we used the implicit association test (IAT) to investigate sex-differentiated biases in classifying sexual or emotional infidelity information as being positive or negative. Men made significantly more errors when asked to classify as pleasant, words indicating sexual infidelity. In Experiment 2, we modified the Stroop task to include words that depicted infidelity-related topics in three priming conditions: sexual infidelity priming, emotional infidelity priming, and a no priming control. Men were significantly slower to respond after being primed with sexual infidelity scenarios. The effect of sexual infidelity priming was not word-category specific, suggesting that cognition about a partner’s sexual infidelity hijacks general cognitive and attentional processing. These findings suggest that men may automatically classify information about sexual infidelity as negative and that the automatic negative processing of sexual infidelity takes precedent over other types of immediate cognition.

Keywords

jealousy, infidelity, sex differences, sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, Stroop, and Implicit Association Test

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