Green eyed monsters? Psychopaths’ Responses to Sexual and Emotional Infidelity-Revealing Snapchat Messages

Abstract

Jealousy manifestation and the differences between sexes has been an interest to evolutionary psychologists for decades. Evolutionary theory of sexual jealousy suggests that men have shown to fear that their partner will engage in sexual activity with another male whereas females have shown to exhibit more jealousy towards emotional infidelity. Although much is known about jealousy manifestation between sexes, there is paucity of literature examining personality constructs that may exacerbate this jealousy, such as psychopathy. One facet of psychopathy that is underexplored is how such traits may relate to one’s propensity to jealousy, furthermore psychopathy in women is considerably under researched. As online infidelity has increased and is facilitated through the secrecy of social media applications (apps), is gives cause to test such evolutionary theories within a technology setting. The current study asked 97 participants (male = 41) to complete the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP, Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995). After which they were presented with imagined emotional and sexual infidelity-revealing Snapchat messages and were asked to rate their level of distress (0-10) upon discovering them on their partners phone. Partial support for evolutionary theory was found with males exhibiting more jealousy towards sexual infidelity and females more so towards emotional infidelity. As predicted high psychopathy females reported more distress towards sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. The findings will be discussed in accordance with existing literature, highlighting the implications of the research and the need for a deeper understanding of psychopathy in women with suggestions for future research.