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Jealousy is typically used to describe the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival. The word jealousy stems from the French jalousie, formed from jaloux (jealous), and further from Low Latin zelosus (full of zeal), and from the Greek word for "ardour, zeal" (with a root connoting "to boil, ferment"; or "yeast").
Definitions of jealousy
The complexity of jealousy allows it to be defined in different ways. Scientists and dictionaries have offered many definitions of jealousy. Yet, despite variations in wording and emphasis, a few basic themes occur in many of the definitions. Jealousy can also be distinguished from other phenomena such as envy.
Scientific and dictionary definitions
Darwin considered jealousy a complex emotion that people expressed through various behaviors. The fact that people express jealousy in various ways makes it difficult to define jealousy. Social scientists have offered many different definitions of jealousy. For example:The particular words and concepts emphasized in these definitions no doubt reflect the personal interests of the scientists who wrote them. Yet, many scientific definitions of jealousy share some basic themes. Two common themes are that: (a) jealousy involves a combination of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and (b) jealousy occurs when a person feels a valued relationship is threatened. These themes are also found in many dictionary definitions. For example, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionarydefines jealousy as "a jealous disposition, attitude, or feeling," where the term jealous is defined as being "intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness," "disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness," or "hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage." Thus, while the complexity of jealousy allows scientists and dictionaries to define jealousy in various ways, the common themes in these definitions indicate that jealousy is a meaningful concept.
- "Romantic jealousy is here defined as a complex of thoughts, feelings, and actions which follow threats to self-esteem and/or threats to the existence or quality of the relationship, when those threats are generated by the perception of a real or potential attraction between one's partner and a (perhaps imaginary) rival." (White, 1981, p. 24) White, G.L. (1981). Jealousy and partner's perceived motives for attraction to a rival. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 24-30.
- "Jealousy in romantic relationships is experienced in divergent ways and has a variety of behavioral expressions (cf. Clanton and Smith, 1977). The common element in all these manifestations of jealousy is the aversive affective state that is evoked by the real or imagined attraction between the partner and a third person." (Buunk, 1984, p. 107) Bram Buunk, B. (1984). Jealousy as related to attributions for the partner's behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 47, 107-112.
- "Jealousy is conceptualized as a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral response to a relationship threat. In the case of sexual jealousy, this threat emanates from knowing or suspecting that one's partner has had (or desires to have) sexual activity with a third party. In the case of emotional jealousy, an individual feels threatened by her or his partner's emotional involvement with and/or love for a third party. The experience and expression of jealousy is influenced by a number of factors, including culture, personality, and relational characteristics." (Guerrero, Spitzberg, & Yoshimura, 2004, p. 311) Guerrero, L.K., Spitzberg, B.H., & Yoshimura, S.M. (2004). Sexual and Emotional Jealousy. In J.H. Harvey, S. Sprecher, and A. Wenzel (Eds.), The Handbook of Sexuality in Close Relationships (pp. 311-345). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Jealousy versus envy
Some authorities (e.g., John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971) distinguish between jealousy and envy on the ground that jealousy involves the wish to keep what one has, and envy the wish to get what one does not have. (Thus, the child is jealous of her parents' attention to a sibling, but envious of her friend's new bicycle.) This is problematic in that, e.g., a teenager may be jealous of the affection a rock star bestows on his fiancée, even though the teenager neither has nor thinks she has that affection herself. Others suggest that the key difference between envy and jealousy is the involvement of a third party: it is not merely that the jealous person wishes to have the attention for himself, or that the third party who is getting it would not get it, but rather that he wishes the person of whom he is jealous would not give that attention to a third party. Some even claim a distinction between jealousy and envy insofar as while envy is the carnal desire to possess something that is not yours, jealousy is the righteous feeling that one has towards that which is rightly his (such as a spouse's fidelity).Another common distinction between jealousy and envy is that envy is the desire for something in general (one envies a friend's new bike), whereas jealousy is the desire to have something in particular, and to take it from someone else (one is jealous of a friend's girlfriend).
For this reason, some have suggested that jealousy most centrally concerns one's perception of oneself. (Jeffrie Murphy, William Pennell Rock). The perception that a person whose evaluation matters a great deal to us prefers someone else can make us doubt our own worth. In fact, scientific research has not clearly established a link between jealousy and self-esteem. Some studies suggest lower self-esteem is related to higher jealousy. Bringle, R. G., Roach, S., Andler, C, & Evenbeck, S. (1979). Measuring the intensity of jealousy reactions. Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 9, 23-24. Buunk, B. (1982). Anticipated sexual jealousy: Its' relationship to self esteem, dependency, and reciprocity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 310-316. Mathes, E. W., Adams, H. E., & Davies, R. M. (1985). Jealousy: Loss of relationship rewards, loss of self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and anger. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 48(6), 1552-1561. White, G.L. (1981b). Some correlates of romantic jealousy. Journal of Personality, 49, 129-146. Other studies suggest no relationship between jealousy and self-esteem. Buunk, B. (1981). Jealousy in sexually open marriages. Alternative Lifestyles, 4, 357-372. Shettel-Neuber, J., Bryson, J.B., Young, L.E. (1978). Physical attractiveness of the "other person" and jealousy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4(4), 612-615. White, G.L. (1981a). A model of romantic jealousy. Motivation and Emotion, 5, 295-310. Clanton has argued strongly against attributing all jealousy to low self-esteem. Clanton, G. (1989). Jealousy in American culture, 1945-1985: Reflections from popular literature (T.C. Hood, Ed.). Contemporary studies in sociology (pp. 179-193). Greenwich, CN: JAI Press.
Sociology of jealousy
936H.JPG|left|thumb|300px|Love Letter from a Rival
A youth catches her boyfriend with a love letter from another.
Miyagawa Isshô, ca. 1750; Panel from a series of ten homoerotic scenes, on a shunga-style painted hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection.]]
The incidence of jealousy and the types of situations that give rise to jealousy vary across societies.
Margaret Mead reports a number of societies in which a man would offer his wife or daughter to others for sexual purposes, as well as cases in which "first wives" in polygamous societies would welcome additional wives as enhancing their prestige and lightening their work. She contrasts the Dobuans, whose lives were dominated by jealous guardianship of everything from wives to yams, with the Samoans, among whom jealousy was rare.
It is possible that Mead's attribution of these differences to social arrangements is correct. Stearns similarly notes that the social history of jealousy among Americans shows a near absence of jealousy in the eighteenth century, when marriages were arranged by parents and close community supervision all but precluded extramarital affairs. As these social arrangements were gradually supplanted by the practice of dating several potential partners before marriage and by more fluid and anonymous living arrangements, jealousy as a social phenomenon correspondingly increased.
However, others have questioned Mead's findings about Samoa. Freeman, D. (1983). Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. New York: Viking Penguin. Freeman, D. (1999). The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. New York: Westview Press. Buss, D.M. (2000). The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex. New York: Free Press. Buss, D.M. (2001). Human nature and culture: An evolutionary psychological perspective. Journal of Personality, 69, 955-978. Mead spent much of her time living in a nearby hotel, rather than among the Samoans themselves, and relied heavily on two individuals rather than direct observation. These two individuals later admitted to giving Mead false information. Jealousy occurred far more frequently than Mead suggested and often resulted in violence. The Samoans have a word for such violence: fua. It appears no society has the freedom from jealousy which Mead attributed to the Samoans. The incidence of jealousy may vary across cultures, but jealousy remains a cultural universal nonetheless.
By the late 1960s and the 1970s, jealousy — particularly sexual jealousy — had come to be seen as both irrational and shameful in some quarters, particularly among advocates of free love. Clanton, G. (1989). Jealousy in American culture, 1945-1985: Reflections from popular literature (T.C. Hood, Ed.). Contemporary studies in sociology (pp. 179-193). Greenwich, CN: JAI Press. Advocates and practitioners of non-exclusive sexual relationships, believing that they ought not to be jealous, sought to banish or deny jealous reactions to their partners' sexual involvement with others. Many found this unexpectedly difficult, though for others, conscious blocking of the jealous reaction is relatively easy from the start, and over time the reaction can be effectively extinguished. Some studies suggest that jealousy may be reduced in multilateral relationships where there is a clear hierarchy of relationships or where expectations are otherwise fixed. (See Smith and Smith, Beyond Monogamy.) Contemporary practitioners of what is now called polyamory (multiple intimate relationships) for the most part treat jealousy as an inevitable problem, best handled by accommodation and communication. In mainstream society, although jealousy still carries connotations of insecurity, there is a greater tendency to accept it as a normal and expected reaction to a relationship threat.
Coping with jealousy
Where jealousy produces excessive discomfort or relationship difficulties, several strategies are available to reduce it. These include desensitization through controlled exposure to the jealousy-producing stimulus, revision of the underlying judgments (where these are irrational) through cognitive therapy, unearthing and addressing childhood conflicts that predispose one to jealousy, and changing the dynamics of the relationship to disrupt the jealousy-producing cycle. (Malach-Pines, Romantic Jealousy.)
Also, certain religious codes, such as Christianity and Buddhism teach that individuals must learn to "let go" of the things they desire most, thereby freeing themselves from the ultimately harmful effects of the emotion.
Paraphilia
While mainstream psychology considers sexual arousal through jealousy a paraphilia (categorized as zelophilia), some authors on sexuality (Serge Kreutz, Instrumental Jealousy) have argued that jealousy in manageable dimensions can have a definite positive effect on sexual function and sexual satisfaction. Studies have also shown that jealousy sometimes heightens passion towards partners and increases the intensity of passionate sex. DeLameter, J. (1991). Emotions and sexuality. In K. McKinney and S. Sprecher (Eds.), Sexuality, in close relationships (pp. 49-70). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. glass, thick, ribbed and non-transparent, was formerly known as "jealous-glass," and this application is seen in the borrowed French word jalousie, a blind or shutter, made of slats of wood, which slope in such a way as to admit air and a certain amount of light, while excluding rain and sun and inspection from without. Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel Jalousie plays on this usage.
References
See also
- Penis envy
- Othello A play by Shakespeare that focuses on the subject.
- Jealousy and the Abyss, an article on the topic by William Pennell Rock originally published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. http://www.planetwaves.net/jealousy.html
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