Evolutionary perspective of romantic jealousy in heterosexual and homosexual individuals

Abstract

Jealousy is defined as one of the most common automatic responses to endangering a relationship by a third party, and in evolutionary psychology it has the function of maximizing selfreproduction fitness, ensuring paternity security in men and maintaining partner,s resources in women. These include romantic jealousy, in men assuring certainty of paternity, and in women assuring the maintenance of partner,s resources. Thus, according to this logic, woman’s sexual infidelity should be more threatening for men and man’s emotional infidelity (emotional involvement with other women than a primary partner) should be more threatening for women. Many previous studies confirm the existence of sex differences in jealousy; men reporting higher level of sexual jealousy and women reporting higher level of emotional jealousy. On the contrary, studies of romantic jealousy in homosexual individuals show inconsistent results. Some studies suggest that the type of sexual and emotional jealousy does not depend on the sex of the individual who is jealous, but rather on the sex of the partner or the sex of the rival. Therefore, the aim of this review is to introduce romantic jealousy from an evolutionary perspective and to acquaint the reader with current knowledge of the study of cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of romantic jealousy in heterosexual and homosexual men and women.