The disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to sexual and emotional infidelity

The present study tests two predictions derived from the evolutionary view of jealousy. (1) For men the disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to sexual infidelity is more difficult than from neutral or emotional infidelity cues. Conversely, for women the disengagement of attentive resources from task-irrelevant cues to emotional infidelity is more difficult than from neutral or sexual infidelity cues. (2) These difficulties are especially pronounced in participants currently involved in a committed romantic relationship. In each trial either an affectively neutral, an emotional infidelity or sexual infidelity distractor was simultaneously presented with a target sentence. The last trial was followed by a recall test for the targets and distractors. The results confirmed both predictions. Implications and limitations of the present study are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.