Judging a book by its cover: Jealousy after subliminal priming with attractive and unattractive faces

The present paper focuses on the effect a rival’s facial attractiveness has on female jealousy. A parafoveal subliminal priming paradigm was employed to expose participants to rivals outside their conscious awareness. Female participants were exposed to either an attractive woman or an unattractive woman for 60 ms. They subsequently read a jealousy-evoking scenario which introduced a rival, but a description of her appearance was withheld. Our results suggest that participants have unconsciously linked the subliminally presented photograph to the rival. Women exposed to the attractive woman reported significantly more jealousy than women exposed to the unattractive rival. Moreover, they reported feeling significantly more worried, hurt, angry, and sad.