 23. The Self‑Conscious and Social Emotions  515
The beneficial effects of the emotion may 
be particularly pronounced for older adults, 
who tend to experience greater gratitude as 
a result of viewing their remaining time as 
limited (Allemand & Hill, 2016). However, 
other studies suggest that a grateful dispo -
sition can be cultivated by anyone, and in -
terventions designed to boost dispositional 
gratitude have shown promise for increasing 
health and well-being. In a seminal study, 
Emmons and McCullough (2003) found that 
individuals assigned to a gratitude interven -
tion scored higher on several self- and spouse-  
reported measures of well-being and mental 
health compared to individuals in a control 
condition that required listing daily hassles. 
Subsequent interventions have also proven ef -
fective, but these studies often fail to employ 
rigorous double-  blind designs with true neu -
tral control groups, making this an impor -
tant area for future work (Wood et al., 2010).
Compassion
Compassion arises in response to witnessing 
someone suffering or in need, and motivates 
a desire to help that individual (Goetz, Kelt -
ner, & Simon-  Thomas, 2010; Lim & DeSte -
no, 2016). It is a broad emotional experience 
that encompasses narrower feelings of em -
pathic concern, sympathy, and tenderness, 
each of which is often conceptualized and 
measured in a similar manner (e.g., Batson, 
Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Eisenberg et al., 
1994). Compassion also increases one’s sense 
of connection and identification with others, 
particularly others who are relatively weak 
or vulnerable (Oveis, Horberg, & Keltner, 
2010). At a physiological level, compassion 
has been shown to increase cardiac vagal 
tone activity, a marker of the parasympa -
thetic nervous system that is known to pro -
mote affiliative behaviors (Stellar, Cohen, 
Oveis, & Keltner, 2015).
Based on these findings, some have ar -
gued that the primary adaptive function of 
compassion is to promote care for needy off -
spring, thereby enhancing inclusive fitness 
(Goetz et al., 2010). In fact, Buckels and col -
leagues (2015) found that individual differ -
ences in parental motivation are positively 
related to momentary feelings of compassion 
when imagining caregiving for infants and 
children.1Jealousy
Jealousy involves a concern about losing 
something valuable, particularly to a rival 
and within the context of a romantic re -
lationship. It is a complex emotional ex -
perience that includes feelings of sadness, 
suspicion, betrayal, threat, and vengeance 
(Parrott & Smith, 1993). Jealousy has been 
conceptualized as a psychological adapta -
tion that functions to inform a person that 
his or her relationship is in danger and to 
motivate behaviors that guard against this 
threat and reduce unnecessary or ineffi -
cient expenditures of mating or parenting 
resources (Buss & Haselton, 2005). Evolu -
tionary logic further posits that men must 
contend with paternity uncertainty, mak -
ing a partner’s sexual infidelity a risk fac -
tor for wasted parenting resources, whereas 
women rely on their partners’ investment of 
resources and child care, making emotional 
infidelity a larger risk factor. Supporting 
this account, studies across cultures have 
demonstrated that men report greater jeal -
ousy, and show increased physiological re -
activity to thoughts of sexual infidelity than 
emotional infidelity, and women show the 
opposite (see Buss & Haselton, 2005, for a 
review).
This theory has, however, attracted criti -
cism from multiple angles. For example, 
some have noted that supportive studies rely 
exclusively on forced-  choice measures that 
require participants to choose which form of 
infidelity (sexual or emotional) would upset 
them more; when continuous measures are 
used and a wider range of feelings linked to 
jealousy assessed, both men and women re -
port greater jealousy at the thought of sexual 
than emotional infidelity (DeSteno, Bartlett, 
Braverman, & Salovey, 2002). In addition, 
others have argued and have found that men 
show elevated physiological arousal when 
thinking about sexual material, regardless 
of whether it is about a partner’s infidelity 
compared to when thinking about emotion -
al content; this difference is less consistent 
in women (C. Harris, 2000). Together, these 
findings support the notion that jealousy 
may be a universal emotional state arising 
from the cognitive appraisal that a rival is 
threatening a valued aspect of one’s relation -
ship, and sexual infidelity may represent a 