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Four experiments tested the hypothesis that concerns about infidelity would lead people, particularly those displaying high chronic levels of romantic jealousy, to display a functionally coordinated set of implicit cognitive biases aimed at vigilantly processing attractive romantic rivals. Priming concerns about infidelity led people with high levels of chronic jealousy (but not those low in chronic jealousy) to attend vigilantly to physically attractive same-sex targets at an early stage of visual processing (Study 1), to strongly encode and remember attractive same-sex targets (Study 2), and to form implicit negative evaluations of attractive same-sex targets (Studies 3 and 4). In each case, effects were observed only for same-sex targets who were physically attractive--individuals who can pose especially potent threats to a person's own romantic interests. These studies reveal a cascade of implicit, lower order cognitive processes underlying romantic rivalry and identify the individuals most likely to display those processes. At a broader conceptual level, this research illustrates the utility of integrating social cognitive and evolutionary approaches to psychological science. Keywords: social cognition, emotion, attention, memory, evaluation

The research examined whether age-related cognitive declines affect performance when people form impressions of others. The results from Experiment 1 showed that young and old participants who held positive expectancies about an individual spent more time processing and had better memory for information that was inconsistent rather than consistent with their expectancies. But participants who held negative expectancies tended to focus on information that was consistent rather than inconsistent with their expectancies. In Experiment 2 the task was made more demanding by limiting the amount of time participants had to form their impressions. Under these conditions, older participants who had positive expectations showed deficits in memory for negative information compared with young participants. As expected, both groups performed similarly when they held negative expectancies for the target. The results suggest that although both older and younger adults process social information similarly under self-paced conditions, older adults may be at a disadvantage processing negative information about positively characterized individuals when the context in which impression formation occurs is cognitively demanding.

Individual differences in women's avoidant and vigilant style in coping with the threat of rape were explored in four studies. In the first study, 97 women read a rape scenario and completed measures of cognitive vigilance and avoidance. They also provided ratings of fear of rape and anticipated coping problems in case of sexual assault. Vigilance was associated with significantly higher levels of fear of rape and anticipation of more severe coping problems. No effects were found for cognitive avoidance. Study 2 replicated these findings with a sample of 275 women. In addition, it showed that high vigilance was associated with significantly more rape-preventive behaviors. Study 3, including 172 women, was an online study on the effect of cognitive coping style on fear of rape, anticipated coping problems, and two behavioral measures of rape avoidance. High vigilance was related to higher levels of fear of rape, anticipation of more severe coping problems, and more rape-preventive behaviors. Finally, Study 4 (N=210) showed that individual differences in cognitive coping style affected rape-related affect and behavior in the absence of a rape scenario, underlining the chronic salience of the threat of rape for women. Vigilance was positively related to fear of rape, rape-avoidance behavior, and anticipated coping problems. In contrast, a negative relationship was found between cognitive avoidance and fear of rape, rape-avoidance strategies, and anticipated coping problems. Across the four studies, no evidence was found for an interactive effect of cognitive avoidance and vigilance, as suggested by the construct of repression versus sensitization. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research on repression-sensitization in coping with threatening information.

Dishonest behavior is influenced by situational and personality factors. To assess the role of self-monitoring in cheating, 110 American undergraduates completed Snyder's (1974) self-monitoring scale and attempted to negotiate complex mazes designed to allow and assess cheating under close and loose surveillance. In addition, half of the subjects were offered a performance-contingent incentive. Results indicate sthat surveillance reduced dishonesty and that low self-monitors' comparative lack of concern regarding self-presentation interacted with incentives to increase dishonesty.