Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249 – 257

Sex differences in jealousy: The recall of cues to sexual

and emotional infidelity in personally more and
less threatening context conditions
Achim Schützwohl *, Stephanie Koch
Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Postfach 100 131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
Received 7 August 2003; accepted 30 March 2004

Abstract

We tested the prediction derived from the evolutionary view of jealousy that men preferentially recall
cues to sexual infidelity, whereas women preferentially recall cues to emotional infidelity. This
preferential recall was predicted to be more pronounced in a personally more threatening than in a
personally less threatening context condition. In the personally less threatening context condition, the
participants listened to a story about an anonymous couple spending an evening together; in the
personally more threatening context condition, the same story referred to one’s own romantic
relationship. Integrated in this story were five ambiguous cues each to sexual and emotional infidelity.
As predicted, in a surprise recall test, men preferentially recalled cues to sexual infidelity, whereas
women preferentially recalled cues to emotional infidelity. This preferential recall was significant for
both men and women only in the personally more threatening context condition.
D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Jealousy; Evolve psychological mechanism; Recall; Cues to infidelity

1. Introduction

A central assumption of evolutionary psychological research is that the fundamental

building blocks of the mind are domain- and content-specific information-processing

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: achim.schuetzwohl@uni-bielefeld.de (A. Schützwohl).

1090-5138/04/$ – see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.03.006
250 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257

mechanisms (e.g., Buss, 1999; Cosmides & Tooby, 1994). These specialized mechanisms
have evolved because they solved specific recurrent problems of individual survival or
reproduction. Domain specificity means that the mechanisms are activated and employed
only in those contexts or situations (domains) signaling the presence of the adaptive
problem they evolved to solve. Moreover, a content-specific mechanism is assumed to
preferentially (i.e., rapidly, reliably, and efficiently) process only those classes of
information that are relevant for the solution of the specific problem.
Infidelity in sexual relationships is an essential problem of individual reproduction
(Cosmides & Tooby, 1994) and the jealousy mechanism (JM) is a plausible psychological
adaptation to it. Thus, the domain of the JM is a sexual relationship in which a mate’s
infidelity might threaten one’s own reproductive success. To solve this adaptive problem, the
JM is assumed to preferentially process (e.g., attend, encode, store, and retrieve) information
indicating a mate’s (potential) infidelity.
Men and women’s JMs may differ in the nature of information they preferentially process
because men and women’s reproductive success has been recurrently threatened by different
types of infidelity (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992; Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst,
1982; Symons, 1979). Specifically, a woman’s sexual infidelity deprives her mate of a
reproductive opportunity and may burden him with years of investment in a genetically
unrelated child. In contrast, a man’s infidelity does not burden his mate with unrelated
children, but it may divert resources away from his mate’s progeny. This resource threat may
be signaled by his level of emotional attachment to the other female. As a consequence, men’s
JM is hypothesized to preferentially process information about a mate’s sexual infidelity,
whereas women’s JM is hypothesized to preferentially process information about a mate’s
emotional infidelity.
The evolutionary view of a sex-specific JM spawned an impressive body of research
during the past decade (e.g., Buss et al., 1992, 1999; Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, & Buss,
1996; DeSteno, Bartlett, Salovey, & Braverman, 2002; DeSteno & Salovey, 1996; Geary,
Rumsey, Bow-Thomas, & Hoard, 1995; Grice & Seely, 2000; Harris, 2000, 2002; Harris
& Christenfeld, 1996; Pietrzak, Laird, Stevens, & Thompson, 2002; Sagarin, Becker,
Guadagno, Nicastle, & Millevoi, 2003; Wiederman & Allgeier, 1993; Wiederman &
Kendall, 1999). This research has been primarily devoted to testing the hypothesis that the
female JM responds with stronger emotions to a mate’s emotional infidelity, whereas the
male JM generates stronger emotions in response to a mate’s sexual infidelity (see Harris,
2003, for a critical review). The most widespread measure used in this research consists
of a forced-choice method: The participants are asked to indicate which form of a mate’s
imagined infidelity would distress or upset them more. In her meta-analysis on the results
from the forced-choice measure, Harris (2003) concluded that ‘‘there does appear to be a
sex difference . . . with heterosexual samples. This effect, however, is greatly reduced in
samples that are older than the typical college age’’ (p. 105; but see Hofhansl, Vitouch, &
Voracek, 2004, for a more recent and complete meta-analysis that supports the evolu-
tionary view). In contrast, other self-report measures failed to clearly demonstrate a sex
difference in the content specificity of the JM. In addition, physiological measures as
indicators of the strength of the emotional responses to a partner’s imagined sexual versus
 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257 251

emotional infidelity yielded mixed results. Whereas Buss et al. (1992, Study 2) as well as
Pietrzak et al. (2002) found results consistent with the evolutionary view, Grice and Seely
(2000) and Harris (2000) failed to replicate these findings.
The present research focuses on the processing of input to the JM. More precisely, our
aim is to test the assumption derived from the evolutionary view of jealousy, that the JM
is a domain-, content-, and sex-specific information-processing device. The main predic-
tion was that both men and women preferentially process cues to the adaptively primary
infidelity type (female sexual and male emotional infidelity, respectively). This sex
difference should be especially prominent in the context of one’s own, but not in a
third person’s romantic relationship, because the former context is personally more
threatening than the latter and thus more likely to fully activate the JM. Schützwohl
(2004a, 2004b) reported sex-specific differences in the processing of information about a
mate’s sexual and emotional infidelity. Men and women preferentially actively searched
for information and were preoccupied with thoughts about the adaptively primary
infidelity type (Schützwohl, 2004a). Moreover, given ambiguous cues to infidelity, women
and men tended to differentially infer the adaptively primary infidelity type (Schützwohl,
2004b). Finally, women and men more rapidly processed cues to the adaptively primary
than the adaptively secondary infidelity type (Schützwohl, 2004b). The present study
extends this research in two respects. First, the recall of cues to sexual and emotional
infidelity is a new indicator of the sex-specific preferential processing of cues to the
adaptively primary infidelity type. A second new element of the present study is the
comparison of the processing of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity in personally
more and less threatening contexts.
To test the prediction that the JM is a domain-, content-, and sex-specific information-
processing device with respect to the recall of cues to infidelity, participants listened to
a single story that included five cues more diagnostic of sexual and five cues more
diagnostic of emotional infidelity as identified by Shackelford and Buss (1997) (see
also Schützwohl, 2004b). The personal threat value of the story was varied by
presenting the story under one of two context conditions. In the more threatening
context condition, the story dealt with the participants’ own romantic relationship.
Thus, the 10 cues referred to the infidelity of one’s own mate. In contrast, in the
personally less threatening context condition, the same story referred to an anonymous
couple and the same cues to infidelity were thus evidenced by an anonymous member
of the opposite sex. One week later, the participants were unexpectedly asked to recall
the story.

2. Method

2.1. Apparatus

The presentation of the stories was controlled by an IBM-compatible microcomputer. The

stories were recorded on audio CDs and presented via headphones.
252 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257

2.2. Materials

Initial written instructions informed the participants that the experiment consisted of two
related sessions separated by 1 week. They were told that they would first have to listen to
a story about a couple, which would be followed by a questionnaire. The imaginary story
was about a couple spending an evening together. The frame of the story was constituted
by 19 neutral sentences (e.g., ‘‘You and your girlfriend are going out for dinner tonight’’).
In this story, five ambiguous cues to sexual and five ambiguous cues to emotional infidelity
were integrated, which were selected on the basis of men and women’s ratings of their
diagnosticity values reported by Schützwohl (2004b). The cues were selected such that they
made infidelity appear neither very likely nor very unlikely and were considered
approximately equally diagnostic by both men and women. The cues along with their
mean diagnosticity values are provided in Appendix A.
A speaker of the same sex as the participant narrated the story. In the personally less
threatening context condition, a male and a female first name referred to the characters of
the story. In the personally more threatening context condition, in contrast, the characters
were introduced as you and your partner. In the personally more threatening context
condition, the narrator additionally requested the participants to initially vividly imagine a
committed heterosexual relationship that they had had in the past, that they were currently
having, or that they would like to have. There were two versions of the story in each of the
personally more and the personally less threatening context condition. The two versions
differed only in that the order of presentation of the cues to sexual and emotional infidelity
was reversed (stories are available from the first author upon request).
The duration of the spoken text varied between 2 min 41 s and 2 min 53 s in the
personally more threatening context condition and between 2 min 34 s and 2 min 47 s in the
personally less threatening context condition. The stories in the personally more threatening
context condition were slightly longer due to the additional introductory sentence presented
only in this condition that was followed by a short interval without text, which allowed the
participants to imagine the requested heterosexual relationship. A questionnaire following the
story contained eight items asking for general attitudes with respect to heterosexual
relationships (e.g., ‘‘What is most important for a good relationship?’’). The answering of
these items required no further elaboration of the story. A week after the first part of the
experiment, the participants were unexpectedly asked to note everything they remembered
about the story on a sheet of paper.

2.3. Procedure

The participants were tested individually in one of two adjacent, dimly lit laboratory rooms.
After the female experimenter had ascertained that the participants had understood the
instructions, she started the presentation of the audio CD and left the room. The participants
then listened to the story and subsequently completed the short questionnaire. When the
participant had completed these tasks, the experimenter arranged a second appointment exactly
1 week later.
 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257 253

2.4. Design

The experiment consisted of a 2 (sex)2 (context condition: personally more vs. less
threatening)2 (sequence of the cues)2 (cue type: sexual vs. emotional infidelity) mixed
factorial design with sex, context condition, and sequence of the cues as the between-
subjects factors and cue type as the within-subjects factor. Equal numbers of men and
women were initially randomly assigned to each of the eight groups resulting from the
combination of the three between-subjects factors.

2.5. Participants

The experimenter recruited 121 student participants in the university hall at Bielefeld.
Twenty-seven participants failed to report for the second session, leaving 49 females
and 45 males. The loss of participants was equally distributed across conditions, leaving
21 men and 22 women in the personally more threatening and 24 men and 27 women
in the personally less threatening context condition. Their mean age was 23.2 years
(S.D. = 4.9). The participants were informed at the outset that only after the completion
of the second part of the study would three of them win 50o (about $44)—each
drawn by lot.

3. Results

Recall protocols were scored for the recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity and
the 19 neutral sentences. A cue to infidelity or a neutral sentence was classified as having
been recalled if its semantic content was unambiguously reproduced. One rater who was
naı̈ve with respect to the experiment and the hypotheses and the second author classified all
recall protocols. The two raters agreed in 97% of their classifications. The following analyses
are based on the classifications of the naı̈ve rater.
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the percentage of recalled neutral sentences with sex
and context condition (personally more vs. less threatening) as the between-subjects factors
yielded a significant main effect for sex, F(1, 89) = 4.22, p < .05; women recalled more neutral
sentences than men (34% vs. 28%). The other main effect and the interaction were not
significant, Fs < 1.6.
In a preliminary analysis step of the recall of the cues to infidelity, three-way
ANOVAs were computed separately for each of the five cues to sexual and emotional
infidelity with sex, context condition, and sequence of presentation of the cues as the
between subjects factors. There was no significant main effect of the sequence factor,
Fs < 1.3. There was one marginally significant two-way interaction between sex and the
sequence factor for one cue to emotional infidelity, F(1, 85) = 3.36, p < .10. A three-way
interaction was also marginally significant for one cue to sexual infidelity, F(1, 85) = 3.03,
p < .10. Because the interactions were only marginally significant and unsystematic, the
sequence factor was ignored in subsequent analyses.
254 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257

Men and women’s percentage recall performance for cues to sexual and emotional
infidelity in the personally more and less threatening context conditions are shown in
Fig. 1. A mixed three-way analysis of variance (MANOVA) with participants’ sex and
context condition as the between-subjects factors and cue type (sexual vs. emotional
infidelity) as the within-subjects factor yielded a highly significant sex by cue type
interaction, F(1, 89) = 12.95, p = .001. Also, as predicted, grouping over more and less
threatening conditions women recalled more cues to emotional than cues to sexual
infidelity (36% vs. 27% of cues recalled), t(48) = 2.64, S.E. = 3.6, p = .01, whereas men
recalled significantly more cues to sexual than to emotional infidelity (38% vs. 30%),
t(43) = 2.30, S.E. = 3.8, p < .05.
Also as predicted, sex-biased recall of the evolutionarily primary infidelity type was
more pronounced in the personally more threatening than in the personally less
threatening context as confirmed by the significant three-way interaction between sex,
context condition and cue type, F(1, 89) = 2.74, p = .05 (one-tailed). The remaining main
effects and interactions were not significant, Fs < 1. As can be seen in Fig. 1, the
significant three-way interaction is due to the fact that in the personally more threatening
context condition, women recalled significantly more cues to emotional than to sexual
infidelity (36% vs. 25%), t(21) = 2.14, S.E. = 5.5, p < .05, whereas men recalled signifi-
cantly more cues to sexual than to emotional infidelity (44% vs. 29%), t(20) = 3.20,
S.E. = 4.8, p = .004. In the personally less threatening context condition, however, men’s
recall for cues to sexual and emotional infidelity did not significantly differ (33% vs.

Fig. 1. Men and women’s mean percentage recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity in the personally less
and the personally more threatening context condition.
 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257 255

30%), t < 1. Similarly, although women in the personally less threatening context condition
recalled somewhat more cues to emotional than to sexual infidelity (36% vs. 28%), this
preference was not significant t(26) = 1.59, S.E. = 4.7, p > .10.

4. Discussion

The present results support the view that the JM is a domain-, content-, and sex-specific in-
formation-processing device. Men and women preferentially recalled the cues to the adaptively
primary infidelity type and this preference appeared as a trend in the personally less threatening
condition and was statistically significant in the personally more threatening condition.
Men’s preferential recall of cues to sexual infidelity in the personally more threatening
context condition is obviously attributable to the fact that men’s recall of cues to sexual
infidelity is considerably increased in the personally more threatening as compared to the
personally less threatening condition. In contrast, men’s recall of cues to emotional infidelity
is unaffected by the manipulation of the context condition. These findings suggest that cues to
sexual infidelity (or more generally the sexual content) per se are insufficient to produce a
differential recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity. These findings also contradict
Harris’ (2000) assumption that ‘‘men are more reactive to any form of sexual stimuli than
they are to emotional stimuli or are more interested in, or better able to imagine, such stimuli’’
(p. 1084).
Unexpectedly, women recalled significantly more neutral items than men. An inspection of
the recall performance for each of the 19 neutral items revealed that a single neutral item was
responsible for this result. Irrespective of personal threat condition, this item was recalled by
82% of the women but only by 23% of the men. Interestingly, this item appeared between two
cues to emotional infidelity and concerns the partner talking about news from a friend of the
same sex. The friend’s name makes the partner nervous and avoids mentioning it (Cues 4 and
5 to emotional infidelity in Appendix A). Women’s excellent recall of this neutral item
suggests that women preferentially processed this part of the story dealing with two cues to
emotional infidelity.
The present study does not specify the nature of the cognitive processes responsible for
the preferential recall of cues to the adaptively primary infidelity type in the personally
more threatening context condition. This preferential recall might be due to selective
attentive processes, preferential processing, or storage of cues to the adaptively primary
infidelity type or a combination of any of these processes. Thus, an important task of
subsequent studies would be to detail the relevant cognitive processes underlying sex-
biased recall of cues to different types of infidelity.

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG Schu 1559/1-1). We thank Kirsten Borgstedt for her insightful comments and
256 A. Schützwohl, S. Koch / Evolution and Human Behavior 25 (2004) 249–257

suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. Lily-Maria Silny considerably improved

the language of the manuscript.

Appendix A

Cues to emotional infidelity that were integrated in the story, along with women and men’s
mean diagnosticity ratings in parentheses (Schützwohl, 2004b).
(1) He doesn’t want to go out on dates with you as often. (4.62 vs. 4.81)
(2) He starts looking for reasons to start arguments with you. (5.35 vs. 5.97)
(3) He doesn’t respond anymore when you tell him that you love him. (6.65 vs. 6.63)
(4) He begins avoiding talking about a certain other woman in conversations with you.
(6.94 vs. 6.16)
(5) He acts nervous when a certain woman’s name comes up in conversations with you.
(7.06 vs. 6.09)

Cues to sexual infidelity that were integrated in the story along with women and men’s
mean diagnosticity ratings in parentheses (Schützwohl, 2004b).
(1) He starts acting overly affectionate toward you. (3.53 vs. 3.63)
(2) His clothing style suddenly changes. (4.09 vs. 3.78)
(3) He suddenly has difficulty becoming sexually aroused when he and you want to have
sex. (4.26 vs. 4.97)
(4) You notice that he seems bored when you have sex. (5.15 vs. 5.03)
(5) He suddenly refuses to have sex with you. (5.76 vs. 6.03)

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