The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex (34 page)

Zahavi may be guilty of exaggeration when he says that the only
way to obtain accurate information is to inflict pain. Observing how a partner
treats you over time surely provides valuable information about commitment—when
a partner surprises you with flowers, for example, or carries you off for a
romantic weekend at the shore. The smoke signals of betrayal can also be read
without creating intentional tests. A partner who forgets your birthday or
accidentally calls out someone else’s name in the heat of sex surely reveals something
about commitment without you having to inflict anything at all.

People also gain knowledge about commitment when they bestow
benefits and then note how their partner reacts. When a woman refuses to accept
a piece of jewelry from a man she’s been seeing, for example, it may reveal
something about her absence of deep psychological engagement. But Zahavi is
correct that commitment is more difficult to discern when the waters are calm
and the relationship sailing is smooth. By inflicting a hardship on your
partner and then gauging the reaction, you can gain more revealing information.

Early courtship, prior to heavy investment, calls for special
kinds of tests. In some species of birds, males first establish territories
that are highly attractive to females. When females enter a male’s territory,
however, the male typically attacks her. In fact, he attacks every female who
comes around, which prompts most of them to fly away. A few females, however,
persist, and reenter his territory again and again. Over time, the male’s
attacks on the most persistent female lessen and eventually disappear
altogether. The pair then proceeds to mate for the rest of their lives.
Aggression is the most reliable means this male bird has for evaluating a
female’s commitment to their future together. Females that regard the male as a
temporary convenience refuse to put up with the attacks, and quickly depart.
Those that intend to commit to him as a lifelong mate endure the onslaught
early in the courtship.

The theory of bond testing can explain many otherwise puzzling
aspects of relationships. It explains why young children sometimes hang onto
their parents to the point of annoyance. It explains why good friends who have
not seen each other for a long time slap each other on the back and insult,
tease, and taunt each other (only a close friend would tolerate such otherwise
offensive behavior). And it explains why, after a substantial absence, lovers
rush into each other’s arms, embrace, and kiss passionately. Whether a bond is
resolute and resistant to outside hostile forces, or fragile and vulnerable to
rupture, requires tests of evaluation and appraisal. How do we go about this
delicate task?

Have you ever intentionally brought up an old lover’s name just
to see how your partner would react? Have you ever intentionally ignored your
partner at a party? Have you ever been unusually friendly to someone else when
your partner was present? Have you ever told your partner that someone had “hit
on” you or asked you out for a date? If you have done any of these things, the
chances are that you’ve engaged in the strategy of intentionally evoking the
jealousy of your partner.

Once jealousy evolved in the human repertoire, it became fair
game for partners to exploit for their own purposes. Eliciting jealousy
intentionally emerged as an assessment device to gauge the strength of a mate’s
commitment. Both sexes do it, but not equally.

In one study, 31 percent of women, but only 17 percent of men
reported that they had intentionally elicited jealousy in their current
romantic partner. Women reported using several key tactics for inducing
jealousy. By far the most common was discussing their attraction to other men,
with 51 percent of women reporting this tactic; actually dating others came in
second at 24 percent; lying about being attracted to someone else was the third
favored technique at 14 percent; and talking about former partners was reported
by 11 percent.

In our study of newlyweds, we found similar sex differences.
Women more than men report flirting with others in front of the partner,
showing interest in others, going out with others, and talking to another man
at a party, all to make their partner jealous or angry.

William Tooke and his colleagues at the State University of New
York at Plattsburgh have conducted the most thorough investigation of the
strategic induction of jealousy. They found strong sex differences in several
clusters of acts designed to induce jealousy. First, women intentionally
socialize with other people. One woman said that she purposefully neglected to
invite her partner along when she went out with her friends. Another said that
she made a point of talking with members of the opposite sex when she and her
boyfriend went out to a bar. A third indicated that she made sure to casually
mention to her boyfriend how much fun she had when she was out partying without
him.

The second jealousy-inducing strategy centered on intentionally
ignoring a partner. One woman reported acting distant and uninterested in her
partner to make him think that she didn’t really care about him that much.
Another woman said she deliberately failed to answer her phone when she knew
her boyfriend was calling so that he would think she was out with someone else.
Yet another told her boyfriend that she did not have time to see him, even
though it was the weekend.

The third mode of strategic jealousy induction was especially
effecive at pushing men’s jealousy buttons—direct flirtation with other men.
One woman reported dancing closely and seductively with someone whom her
partner didn’t like while he stood on the sidelines. Another woman bought a
small gift for another man while out shopping with her partner. Several
reported going out to bars with members of the opposite sex and coming back to
the boyfriend a bit intoxicated. And others reported that they dressed in
especially sexy outfits while going out without their boyfriends, a sure method
of fanning a man’s jealous flames.

A more subtle and ingenious tactic for evoking jealousy involves
merely smiling at other men while out with a partner. Antonia Abbey of Wayne
State University discovered a fascinating difference in how men and women
interpret a woman’s smiles. When women smile, men often erroneously read into
it sexual interest, mistaking friendliness for romantic intent. Women say they
are just being friendly, not sending sexual signals. Martie Haselton and I have
labeled men’s sexual inference an “adaptive bias” in mindreading because it’s
part of men’s unconscious strategy of casual sex. By inferring sexual interest
when a woman merely smiles, men are more likely to initiate sexual overtures in
their pursuit of a short-term mating strategy.

So when a woman smiles at another man while at a party with her
partner, she deftly exploits the evolved psychology of two different men. It
causes the target of the smile to think she’s sexually interested in him, so he
makes advances. Simultaneously, it evokes her partner’s jealousy, so he gets
angry both about the rival and about his perception that she’s encouraging the
other man. The upshot might be a confrontation between the two rivals or a
lover’s quarrel. But who can really blame a woman just for being friendly? No
other method for strategically inducing jealousy is as effective, for it makes
two men dance to a woman’s tune with merely a well-timed glance.

Why do women walk such a dangerous tightrope, trifling with a
male mechanism known to unleash violence? Women report a variety of motives for
intentionally evoking jealousy. Gregory White conducted an in-depth study of
150 heterosexual couples in California to find out. He first asked each of the
300 participants whether they had ever intentionally tried to make their
partner jealous. Then he asked the participants why they did it. Only a few
women reported that they induced jealousy to punish their partner. Eight
percent reported doing it to bolster their self-esteem. Ten percent admitted
doing it to act out feelings of revenge on a partner for a previous wrong.
Increasing a partner’s commitment, however, exceeded all these reasons, being
cited by 38 percent of the women.

By evoking jealousy, a woman causes her partner to believe that
she has attractive alternatives available, and that if he does not display
greater commitment she might kiss him good-bye and depart for greener mating
pastures. Women who successfully use this tactic are more likely to keep the
commitment of their mates.

Forty percent of the women also reported that they evoke
jealousy to test the strength of the bond. By evoking jealousy, a woman gains
valuable information about the depth and consistency of her partner’s
commitment. Women reap this benefit most at a time in the relationship when the
need to test the strength of the bond is especially strong. Women whose
partners have been away for a while, women whose partners experience a sudden
surge in status, and women who feel they might be perceived as being less
desirable than their partner all need these vital appraisals of a man’s
commitment.

Gregory White confirmed this conclusion by asking all the
partners in the study of 150 couples to rate themselves on whether they were
more involved, equally involved, or less involved in the relationship than
their partner. Relative involvement, of course, is a powerful clue to which
partner is more desirable on the mating market, according to the principle of
least interest—the less interested partner has the upper hand on the scale of
desirability. Although 61 percent of the couples were well matched in their level
of involvement, 39 percent showed a mismatch. Does this index of relative
involvement predict who will deploy the jealousy-induction strategy? The effect
for men was modest: 15 percent of those who were less involved intentionally
induced jealousy; 17 percent of those equally involved intentionally induced
jealousy; and 22 percent of the men more involved intentionally induced
jealousy. So there is a slight tendency for the less desirable men to attempt
to evoke more jealousy.

The results for women were more dramatic. Whereas only 28
percent of the women who were less involved reported intentionally inspiring
jealousy in their partners, 50 percent of the women who were more involved than
their partner reported intentionally provoking jealousy. The more involved
women are thus nearly twice as likely as less involved women to report inducing
jealousy. Since women who fall below their partners in overall desirability
confront commitment problems more poignantly than other women, they induce
jealousy in an attempt to correct the imbalance.

Strategically inducing jealousy, in short, serves several key
functions for women. It can bolster self-esteem for some women because of the
attention it attracts from other men. It can increase the commitment of a
partner by making him realize how desirable she really is and that she would
have little difficulty replacing him. And it can test the strength of the bond
because she can use a man’s jealousy as a barometer of the depth of his love.
If he reacts to her flirtations with emotional indifference, she knows he lacks
commitment; if he gets jealous, she knows he’s in love. Evoking jealousy,
although it inflicts a cost on the partner, provides valuable information
that’s difficult to secure through any other means—and it often works.

Virgil Sheets and his colleagues at Indiana State University
discovered that one of the most common reactions in men whose jealousy is
aroused is to increase the attention they pay to their partners. After becoming
jealous, men report that they would be more likely to “try to keep track of
what my partner is doing,” “do something special for my partner,” and “try to
show my partner more attention.”

Tampering with the dangerous passion requires emotional wisdom
so that it doesn’t backfire. Inspiring excessive jealousy, for example, can
result in violence or dissolution of the relationship. Consider one man’s
report: “I had an old girlfriend who liked to dress provocatively. Guys—no,
make that
big
guys—would hit on her constantly. At first, I found this
a real ego boost—at the end of the evening, every guy saw her leave with me.
But after a while, I grew weary of even going out. She was trying to prove that
she was so hot, I’d be foolish to leave her behind, but in the end it
backfired. She put me in too many unnecessary and potentially violent
situations (shooting pool in a really short skirt, for example) and I let her
go. Let some other fool be her guardian.”

So although evoking jealousy can serve a useful function, it
must be used with skill and intelligence to avoid unleashing unintended
consequences.

Jealousy can also spark or rekindle sexual passion in a
relationship, as the following illustrates.

“Let’s call him Goatee Boy. He had all the late ’90s options:
the goatee, an earring, tattoos, baggy cords, and Keds. There on that small
sofa, he was hip, cool . . . and hitting on my girlfriend. And she was playing
along.

“I watched from the bar, sipping something strong and feeling
something stronger. It wasn’t the booze. It was something electric, a surge
through my bones, tendons, and flesh that could have blown fuses at a power
plant. Long story short: I walked over to my girlfriend. In a shaky but
determined voice, I said, ‘Let’s go.’ She looked at me, looked at Goatee Boy. Then
she got up and we left. That night, we flew through more sexual positions than
you’d find in a Kama Sutra paperback. And I had no idea I’d been had.”

Or consider the case of Ben and Stacy, a couple attending an
intensive five-day jealousy workshop conducted by the Israeli psychologist
Ayala Pines. Ben, 15 years older than Stacy, had been married before, but had
been divorced for five years when he first got involved with Stacy. Although
Stacy had had a few romantic relationships, she was still a virgin when they
met. Ben was flattered at the attentions of a woman as young and attractive as
Stacy, but he soon became bored with their sex life, and yearned for sex with
other women. This unleashed intense jealousy in Stacy, which brought them to
the workshop to solve what Ben described as “her problem.” He saw no rational
reason why he should not sleep with other women.