Morbid jealousy from an evolutionary psychological perspective

Individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy have hypersensitive jealousy mechanisms that cause them to have irrational thoughts about their partners and to exhibit extreme behaviors. Because morbid jealousy is defined as a malfunction of evolved jealousy mechanisms such that they produce increased chances of perceiving partner infidelity, research guided by an evolutionary psychological perspective can add insight to the understanding of the disorder. The present research tested eleven evolutionarily relevant hypotheses about jealousy, in an attempt to improve the understanding of the etiology of morbid jealousy. To investigate a large enough sample, I created a database of all the morbid jealousy case histories published in English. Chi-square analyses were used to test all eleven hypotheses. Results for seven hypotheses were significant. By illustrating that there may be an adaptive purpose for some of the associated behaviors and for jealousy, the results of this study can aid clinicians in treating morbid jealousy.