Jealousy

As emotions go, jealousy is neither subtle nor kind, but it is definitely complex, encompassing feelings from fear of abandonment to rage to humiliation. It strikes both men and women when they perceive a third-party threat to a valued relationship, and that distinguishes it from envy, which involves wanting something someone else has. Conventional wisdom holds that jealousy is a necessary emotion because it preserves social bonds, but it more often destroys them. And it can give rise to relationship violence.

Emotional jealousy was predicted to be nine times more responsive in females than in males. The emotional jealousy predicted in females also held turn to state that females experiencing emotional jealousy are more violent than men experiencing emotional jealousy. This correlates with some culture norms that the United States places on women, implying that they should be more emotionally responsive then males. For males society has associated emotion in males to be contained and not expressed in the ways that women tend to express their emotions. This social norm held true when males in a study chose to keep a level head and process and gather information before “talking it out.”