ToM's jealousy.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that men and women value different characteristics in a mate. Wade and Fowler (2006) attempted to test this model to see how the features of the partner in infidelity affected the level of upset in men and women. Their results suggest that only women may rate the competitor in their mate's terms. While attractiveness has been found to be more important to men, and financial well-being as more important to women, women were more upset when the competitor was attractive. Men's level of upset was not affected by the financial success of a competitor. However, as discussed in October ( "The Jealous Type", 10/25/06), this is is contrary to findings by Dijkstra and Buunk (2002), who did find that men became more jealous of more successful rivals. Nadler and Dotan (1992) suggest that men's jealousy is more focused on protecting their egos, while women's is focused on protecting the relationship.
The relationship between attraction criteria and jealous reactions seems to be largely a theory of mind (ToM) question, as much as I'm loathe to admit it. I think ToM is a red herring, but I can't think of a better way to describe people reacting to their partner's predicted reactions. The idea in most of today's studies is that people will not react to what is important to them, but to what is important to their partner in a rival. While I don't think that knowing a partner's tastes is unusual, it seems likely that people would prioritize these factors inaccurately. Actually, I think that, for me, this ties in with yesterday's post on emotional memories (6/18/07), because it is so hard for me to imagine being good at accurately judging someone else's reactions. Does that idea feel natural or easy to you? How much do you stake on your ability to judge others?
The relationship between attraction criteria and jealous reactions seems to be largely a theory of mind (ToM) question, as much as I'm loathe to admit it. I think ToM is a red herring, but I can't think of a better way to describe people reacting to their partner's predicted reactions. The idea in most of today's studies is that people will not react to what is important to them, but to what is important to their partner in a rival. While I don't think that knowing a partner's tastes is unusual, it seems likely that people would prioritize these factors inaccurately. Actually, I think that, for me, this ties in with yesterday's post on emotional memories (6/18/07), because it is so hard for me to imagine being good at accurately judging someone else's reactions. Does that idea feel natural or easy to you? How much do you stake on your ability to judge others?