Why Do Men and Women Experience Jealousy Differently?

Adult heterosexual women and men are often jealous of completely different threats to their relationship. These differences seem to establish themselves much sooner than people need them to be. The result surprised researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) who studied the topic.

"You only really need this jealousy when you have to protect yourself from deception," says Professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair of the NTNU's Institute of Psychology.

Romantic jealousy can, at worst, be felt to be terrible. But jealousy associated with a partner's infidelity was clearly an evolutionary benefit.

"Jealousy is activated when a relationship that is important to us is threatened. The function is probably to minimize threats to this relationship. In the past, these threats were somewhat different for men and women," says Per Helge H. Larsen , a Masters student in the Department of Psychology at NTNU.

Evolutionary psychology can help explain the gender differences that have to do with this jealousy.

Simply put, the differences in sexual jealousy between the sexes revolve around the possibilities for their own children. Previous research has already shown that:

Men are more likely to react more negatively when their partner has had sex than when they fall in love or spend time with someone without having sex.

It's easy to explain: if the woman is sexually unfaithful, it ultimately means that her partner may have to use his or her own resources to raise another man's children.

Women, on the other hand, are always sure that the child is theirs. They tend to react more negatively to their partner having feelings for another woman than they did from having sex with her.

This answer can also be explained. Historically, she could suffer a loss of resources and status for herself and her child if he leaves her for someone else.

We should note that these differences exist long before birth control pills and that women have the option of feeding and raising their children on their own. A few generations are not enough to change biology or culture significantly.

The gender differences that lead to jealousy are easy to explain. It's evolutionary adaptations that are passed on to the next generation - but why does this gender difference appear so early?

It is precisely this question that poses theoretical challenges for the researchers, because historically, jealousy was not free of risk.

"Jealousy can be a costly reaction, perhaps especially for a man before he is physically strong enough to defend himself and his partner against rivals and before he normally has had the opportunity to have a steady partner through marriage," says Kennair.

Throughout history, jealous boys and men are at great risk by expressing their jealousy. It is all too well known to be ostracized, injured, or killed in competition for women. "

Throughout evolutionary history, the usefulness of human jealousy would likely have been reserved for men of high status who had great defensive skills, "says Kennair.

So why be jealous before you can take care of your partner?

"We knew this difference would be felt in the early 20s, but our study showed that it happened even earlier," says Larsen.

The research group at NTNU wanted to find out when these gender differences began in terms of jealousy, sex, and emotions.

To this end, they studied 1,266 students aged 16-19 in upper secondary education. However, it turned out that the participants were not young enough to answer the question of when gender differences develop.

"The gender difference was stable and clear across the age range of the study. That's pretty startling," says Professor Mons Bendixen of the Department of Psychology.

"The gender difference was not affected by whether the teenagers currently had a boyfriend or girlfriend, or whether they had made their sexual debut, so the difference doesn't seem to have anything to do with experience," adds Bendixen.

We can imagine, and perhaps assume, that the gender-specific differences in jealousy reactions occur before the age of 16. But we don't know exactly yet. To confirm this, we also need to examine younger boys and girls.

"It's also unclear how young study participants can be to explore this in meaningful ways," says Kennair.

The distinction between sexual jealousy and other types of jealousy can quickly become meaningless to the youngest of us.

One way or another, the benefits of this early gender sexual jealousy must have outweighed the dangers.

"It could be that the early development of sexual jealousy only prepares us for adulthood and that it has no other function at a younger age."

But Kennair emphasized that jealousy is a dangerous feeling. Young men could endanger themselves by experiencing this feeling before it was appropriate, and they were physically strong enough to defend the relationship.

However, it is clear to the researchers that this idea is still speculation.

"Based on these findings, we need further research and theoretical development," said Kennair.

Reference:

Larsen PHH, Bendixen M., Grøntvedt TV, Kessler AM, Kennair LEO. Investigation of the occurrence of gender differences in jealousy reactions in a large community sample from an evolutionary point of view. Scientific reports. 2021; 11 (1): 6485. doi: 10.1038 / s41598-021-85997-7

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