Following Other Women on Instagram: Innocent or Instant Trouble?

I am confused and find it hard to accept social media. I wanted to know [if it] is ok for my boyfriend to like photos of other girls and follow other women on Instagram. Is that pushing the limits in a relationship?

Thank you for your question. Research on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is relatively new. There are, however, some recent studies that can directly answer your question.

Our own Dr. Amy Muise published a study finding that social network use (e.g., Facebook) can promote jealousy in relationships, because you are exposed to ambiguous information about your partner’s behaviors.¹ In your case, you don’t have a clear picture of your partner’s motives for following other women on Instagram. Therefore, this ambiguity leads to perceptions that his behaviors are a threat to the stability of your relationship.

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Are You the Jealous Type?

Jealousy can be a very painful and destructive emotion. People typically feel jealous when they sense some threat to their relationship (perhaps some smooth operator is making moves on your significant other, and you worry this rival is more attractive/desirable than you are). These feelings of jealousy are sometimes justified; if you and your partner have made an agreement to be sexually exclusive (monogamous), but then s/he is sneaking off to have sexy time with someone else, this is normally a jealousy-provoking situation for most people (i.e., it freaking sucks!). Jealous emotions can be agonizing and often create intense conflicts/fights between partners, and furthermore, these jealousy-provoking situations may sometimes motivate you to exit the relationship.

However, some people are prone to be jealous more often and more consistently than others, even when there are no actual threats to the relationship.

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Who's Your Daddy?

Assuming no freak hospital mix-ups, mothers can be 100% sure that a child that she bears and raises is, in fact, genetically her own. Fathers, however, can’t be quite so sure. Even if “dad” engages in vigilant mate guarding, there’s always the possibility that his partner snuck off for some horizontal mambo action with another guy. Evolutionary psychologists call this the “paternal certainty problem”— men who have been cuckolded and are unknowingly raising a child that’s not their own have failed, from an evolutionary perspective, at passing on their genes. And it turns out that a significant number of men have failed to solve this problem.

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Dr. Amy Muise's Research Featured on bigthink.com

ScienceOfRelationships.com's Dr. Amy Muise's research on the link between Facebook and jealousy was recently featured on the website bigthink.com. Read the article here >>>

See Amy's SofR article about this research here >>>

Check out an interview with Amy (with link to video) here >>>

Pill Use and Mate Retention Tactics: Blame the Estradiol

image source: static.oprah.comThe majority of American women have used a hormonal contraceptive. According to a recent study, women taking hormonal contraceptives, and their male partners, display more “mate retention” tactics (i.e., doing things to keep their partners from straying, such as looking especially sexy or showcasing resources) compared to women, and male partners of women, who do not take hormonal contraceptives. Analyses revealed that it was the synthetic estradiol rather than progesterone that likely causes these effects.

Welling, L. L. M., Puts, D. A., Roberts, S. C., Little, A. C., & Buriss, R. P. (2012). Hormonal contraceptive use and mate retention behavior in women and their male partners. Hormones and Behavior, 61, 114-120.

I’m Watching You on Facebook: Attachment and Partner Surveillance

Facebook helps you stay connected with friends and family, but some people also use it to keep tabs on their romantic partners. Anxiously attached people are more likely to use Facebook to monitor their partners’ behaviors and are more jealous about their partners’ Facebook use (e.g., if the partner is still friends with a former boyfriend/girlfriend). Conversely, avoidant people show the opposite pattern; they monitor their partners less and feel less jealousy.

(A note to you anxious folks out there: if it will help you feel better, please don’t be afraid to spend lots of time monitoring the SofR Facebook page; avoidants are welcome too.)

Marshall, T. C., Bejanyan, K., Di Castro, G., & Lee, R. A. (in press). Attachment styles as predictors of Facebook-related jealousy and surveillance in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships.

Too Sexy for Your Peers: Women’s Indirect Aggression Towards Other Women

New research suggests that women who wear sexy clothing and show cleavage alienate other women. While waiting to participate in what they thought was a study of conflict, pairs of women witnessed an attractive woman in sexy clothing enter the room and talk to a research assistant about setting up the cameras. The researchers recorded responses of the women in the waiting area during the provocatively dressed woman’s presence and after she left the room. The women in the waiting room rolled their eyes, looked at the provocatively dressed woman in disgust, made negative and mocking comments, and laughed at her when she left the room. Apparently this sexy woman was quite threatening. When the same woman entered the room in khakis and a crew neck t-shirt (i.e., not provocatively dressed), the women barely even noticed her!

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How Does Social Media Influence Relationships?: The Morning Show Discussion

Last Friday, I woke up at 4:30am for an appearance on The Morning Show to answer this question. Click here to see the video of the interview.

It is also a question that I and other SofR writers have explored previously. On the show, I discussed my own research about the association between spending time on Facebook and the experience of jealousy. I also suggested that, when triggered, jealousy may lead women to “creep” their partners’ Facebook pages moreso than men, primarily because men tend to be more likely to avoid relationship-threatening information than women.

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A Time to Cheat: How Situations Promote Infidelity

As any good social scientist will tell you, a person’s surroundings and environment have powerful influences on behavior. To assume that there are only cheaters and non-cheaters in the world is an oversimplification. Instead, there are situations where infidelity is more likely to occur. For example, the stress one experiences from a long day at school or at work could increase the chances of being unfaithful.  

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Sexual Strategies in Cross-Sex Friendships

Evolutionary psychologists, including pioneers such as David Buss, have yet another perspective on this type of friendship. These researchers tend to view cross-sex friendship as an evolved reproductive tactic, or “sexual strategy.” In a nutshell, evolutionary processes have created differences between men and women with regards to sex. Thus, men and women may have different motivations for becoming friends with the opposite sex.

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What are We Fighting About?: The Top 15 Sources of Conflict in Relationships

Relationship conflict is inevitable. To identify the most common sources of conflict, over 100 participants listed the ways that men and women could upset, irritate, hurt, or anger each other. Researchers then analyzed subjects’ responses to identify the most central themes, or common topics, in the list. Based on this analysis, here are the top 15 behaviors that can upset a romantic partner, ranked in order by the frequency each behavior was listed (from the most to least mentioned):  

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Is Jealousy Good or Bad for Relationships?

Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening.  ~Maya Angelou

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What Should I Do About My Jealousy?

A reader recently asked: My husband and I have a new friend that is female and single. My husband texts, calls, and visits with her even when I'm not there. I am feeling very jealous. I can tell he likes her but he doesn't think I should be jealous. She is my friend too so it's awkward. What should I do? I hate feeling jealous.

Jealousy is a complicated topic with a lot of moving parts – it is an interpersonal situation that involves the jealous individual, his or her relational partner, and a potentially threatening rival.

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Choose Your Own (Romantic) Adventure: A New Way to Study Relationship Choices

"To continue down the long, well-lit path, turn to page 63. To take a shortcut through the dark alleyway, turn to page 107."

Those of us who were kids in the 1980s and 1990s have fond memories of these interactive, second-person narratives, in which you, the reader, get to choose the protagonist’s fate. But as fun as these stories are, it turns out that they aren’t just for playin’. Researchers have found a way to harness the power of "choose your own adventure" stories to study how people make important decisions about their relationships.

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Why Do People Have Different Sexual Orientations?

A reader submitted the following question: I'd (selfishly) be interested in hearing more about the current research on the emotional/biological/psychological basis of homosexual relationships.

Dear Reader,

You are not alone in wanting to know more about this subject. Students in my Human Sexuality course ask about it every semester!

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How Jealous Are You? Check Your Fingers!

Romantic partners often experience jealousy (see our previous post on jealousy and Facebook), but interestingly, who makes us jealous may lie in how long our fingers are!

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Does the Green Eyed Monster have a Facebook Profile?

In the movie The Social Network, maintaining “single” as his relationship status incited a jealous rage in Eduardo Saverin’s girlfriend. Even Jamie Lynn Sigler (aka Meadow Soprano) found herself feeling jealous on Entourage when her boyfriend Turtle added an attractive new “friend” to his Facebook page.

Our research on Facebook and relationships has found that Meadow Soprano and Eduardo’s girlfriend are not alone, there is a link between Facebook use and the experience of jealousy.

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Jersey Shore: Snooki and Vinny = "Friends with Benefits"

Rather than write about the continuing saga of Ronnie and Sammie (guess what, they’re still fighting as predicted in last week’s post), I thought I’d focus on Vinny and Snooki’s relationship.  If you’ve been following the show, you know that they were friends that “smushed” (had sex) in the past and remain close friends. Essentially, they have a “friends with benefits” relationship where there is a friendship and sex, but no romantic relationship.¹  

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