Saturday, January 28, 2012

Origins of jealousy

Adaptation is a very important concept in Darwin’s theory of evolution. It means that organisms change over time as a result of natural or sexual selection to increase survival and reproductive success. This happens when organisms by obtaining certain traits gain an advantage or solve an adaptive problem.
Psychological mechanisms have also evolved to solve the adaptive problems that our ancestors faced. For example, during our evolutionary history, because of women’s concealed ovulation and extended sexuality, men can never be certain about their paternity, unlike women, who are always one hundred percent sure. According to David J. Buller (2005) since men and women had to face different threats to their reproductive interests, both sexes have evolved jealousy, but through different mechanisms to solve this adaptive problem. For example, if a man thinks that his woman is being unfaithful, it confuses his paternity, putting him at risk of investing his time and resources in another’s man offspring. This situation has predisposed men to focus on cues of sexual infidelity; while women focus more on cues of emotional infidelity, since an emotional involvement of his partner with another woman can result in a loss of his resources and investment in the family.
Attention to infidelity cues and jealousy have been designed by natural selection to reduce paternity confusion and relationship losses by engaging both men and women in retention behaviors that at the end seek to increase their own genes reproductive success.

Do you agree with the conclusion that women feel angrier facing an emotional infidelity while men feel angrier facing a sexual infidelity? Any experiences?



* Buller, J. David. (2005). Adapting minds:Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. The MIT Press, 318-320.

1 comment:

  1. It's hard to conclude that a great majority of women feel the specific emotion of anger, more than men, given an emotional infidelity. That men feel angrier facing a sexual infidelity seems reasonable, but the fact that it's not mutually exclusive either way for both genders, makes the dichotomy very unclear.

    Emotional infidelity seems like a vague premise for a clear cut answer. People are awfully complex, and their mental schemas and psyches have been molded more or less by very specific events along their lives. Familial ties and cultural customs have a great deal to do with how people perceive relationships.

    If we think of the rudimentary human millions of generations ago, and into the first primates, it's safe to say that the survival of the species comes from effective ways to survive and reproduce. Sex drive is a definitive factor, hardwired into our ancient genes. However, I think that the way this sexuality is expressed is irrevocably dependent on early childhood, social norms, education, personality, etc...

    In my opinion, most modern humans don't live in extreme jungle conditions where you have to actually adhere to those hardwired sexual impulses that were successful before. We don't have to hunt for food or physically dominate another person in order to survive and reproduce. Our interactions are much more subtle than that. They are enshrouded by all sorts of feelings, embodied by all sorts of people that are not necessarily sensitive, or aggressive, or even jealous. What I'm getting at, is that the modern world affords for all sorts of people to survive and reproduce...even with emotional/intellectual predispositions that don't adhere to established dynamics that mean life or death like it would have been in the jungle.

    Interesting stuff, Diana!

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