An Experimental Test of Jealousy's Evolved Function: Imagined Partner Infidelity Induces Jealousy, Which Predicts Positive Attitude Towards Mate Retention

Jealousy may have evolved to motivate adaptive compensatory behavior in response to threats to a valued relationship. This suggests that jealousy follows a temporal sequence: A perceived relational threat induces state feelings of jealousy which in turn motivates compensatory behavior, such as mate retention effort. Yet to date, tests of this mediation model have been limited to cross-sectional data. This study is the first to experimentally test this theoretical model. Men and women (