Yesterday a new reader wrote to me that my blog about jealousy was ‘shallow’. I must agree. I was upset and wrote an emotional blog. I did mention that my experience to jealousy was limited to a single 2012 incident. It’s not the best excuse however for writing a shallow blog. Today I aim to put jealousy in a much broader context.
Part 1 of my blog on jealousy suggested that jealousy is limited to love. Well, indeed it is. There is however another type of jealousy which is called ‘envy’ (NL: afgunst). Envy can be about anything. People can envy other people for having something – or for not having something. I think and feel that envious people feel insecure about (some of) their choices in life when they see other people having made different choices. This may also explain why I seldom feel envious as I don’t regret the choices that I have made in my life. Regret is a waste of time – and emotion.
Evolutionary psychologists have spent years researching jealousy. In her review of the literature, Harris (2004) writes that evolutionary psychologists suggest that jealousy might have given a “fitness advantage” for men and women. More specifically, Buss (1995) concluded that a specific set of brain circuits determines a jealous reaction, and found that men were more jealous about physical infidelity while women were more jealous about emotional infidelity. PsychologyToday
Insecurity is the most common source of jealousy. People often throw around the term “inferiority complex,” which is not a clinical term, but refers to an underlying impoverished ego or low self-esteem—a jealous man who feels insecure in his romantic relationships, for example, does not feel confident that he is good and valuable enough to keep another person interested in him over time. It’s important to note that insecurity is usually not absolute in men and women (PsychologyToday). The other 2 – less common – reasons for jealousy are obsessive thinking and a paranoid personality.
If you ask a jealous person whether he (or she) was justified in feeling jealous, he would probably cite several examples where jealousy was actually founded in fact. In other words, a partner really was cheating, or truly did betray him! (PsychologyToday). Interestingly, the same happened in my case. Might jealousy be like an evolutionary alarm going off, activated by our (sub)conscious??
There is a lot of nature-nurture – or evolution-culture – debate about jealousy (NYT). The fact that jealousy is also seen in domesticated animals, like cats and dogs, does not really help this debate. In my view, the cause for jealousy is an interesting but primarily academic discussion that ignores the real issue in jealousy: is jealousy (ever) justified? Claims of jealousy are often belittled. The two less common reasons for jealousy are often used for that purpose: obsession and paranoia. Jealousy may even be projected on someone through reverse psychology.
The purpose of jealousy might be to protect social bonds – even in animals. It’s rather ironic that the way jealousy is expressed often leads to the opposite of its purpose. PsychologyToday: For extremely jealous individuals, their jealousy almost always leads to the end of relationships.
In my view, jealousy is a useful – evolutionary or cultural – tool. Expressing jealousy is the dangerous part. As the saying goes: Forewarned is forearmed (NL: Een gewaarschuwd mens telt voor twee).
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