When it comes to jealousy in relationships, who is the greener among us?
Men or women?
Before I get into gender differences in romantic jealousy I would first like to take a moment
to blame the culprit for this green-eyed monster.
Babies.
According to the oft-cited evolutionary theory of jealousy, the reason why this innate human
emotion exists is all because we start getting crazy about our babies.
Men's romantic jealousy according to this theory is driven by paternity insecurity or
the fear that their babies might not actually be their babies.
Women's romantic jealousy at least according to this theory is driven by fears that their
baby-daddies are not going to stick around and care for said babies.
a wise man once said it's all about the Benjamins but really, it's all about the babies-mins.
For that reason the predominant theory of jealousy is that men, women and jealousy is
that men are more jealous of sexual infidelity whereas women are more jealous of emotional
infidelity.
When researchers look into gender differences in jealousy it isn't so much the question
of whether men or women are more jealous but how they might be jealous differently.
At least, that is, when you're looking at jealousy through that evolutionary lens.
However additional research has uncovered some nuances in these somewhat stereotypical
gender differences in jealousy.
That don't necessarily have to do with babies.
A 2010 study found that a person's relationship attachment style--fancy psychological term
for essentially how you deal with relationships, whether you are more securely attached, anxiously
attached or dismissively attached--plays a big factor in this sex versus emotional jealousy.
Both dismissively attached men and women were far more likely to be jealous of sexual fidelity
versus emotional fidelity.
Whereas for securely attached people, men and women alike were far more likely to be
jealous from emotional infidelity versus sexual infidelity.
Which means that it's not just our reproductive impulses at work but also psychological factors
that are going to vary on an individual basis as well.
And speaking of reproductive impulses, one interesting caveat of this supposed gender
difference in romantic jealousy is that it disappears when you look at gay and lesbian
populations.
A lot of times the strongest sex differences of men being more jealous of sexual infidelity
and women being more jealous of emotional infidelity tends to only happen when looking
at hetrosexual groups.
Ehhhh?
Which researchers then circle back to babies.
If you take away the reproductive factor in this jealousy the sex differences disappear.
Hmmm.
Not to say that jealousy doesn't exist within LGBT groups but that their jealousy is not
as pronounced and that again those gender differences just don't really exist.
Which kind of means that when you take babies out of the equation things get a little better.
No offense babies.
Finally and not to discredit everything I've said in the past few minutes but it is important
to take these kinds of study findings with just a tiny grain of salt or at least pay
attention to study methodologies.
Some researchers point out that hey, when you simply make people choose between hypothetical
scenarios of would you rather be cheated on this way or this way, the results get a little
bit muddied compared to when you actually ask people to reflect on jealousy provoking
situations that happened to them in the real world.
Although we might think that one type of romantic threat, be it sexual or emotional, might hurt
us more, when it actually happens in front of us in the real world, there are a lot of
different variables that are going to go into how we process it and how jealous we might
or might not actually be.
But enough with research, what do you think?
Are there differences in the way men and women are jealous and do you think that men or women
are the more jealous sex?
Let me know in comments below and I just realized this totally looks like a Breaking Bad Heisenberg
hat.
For Saint Patrick's Day.