Jealousy – Exploring the ‘Green-Eyed Monster’

Jealousy is a strong and powerful emotion in people’s lives. Mostly defined as a ‘negative emotion’, jealousy can – and sometimes does – destroy not only romantic relationships and the lives of those taking part in them, but it can, in fact, also serve as an important source of intimacy, creativity and bonding in amorous/sexual relationships. Even though we conventionally regard jealousy perhaps as something pertaining mainly to the individual or to his/her intimate relationships, jealousy also has much more far-reaching causes and consequences. In this chapter, the authors explore jealousy as an emotion. The purpose of the chapter is to provide an introductory overview of the emotion of jealousy by drawing on insights and studies from a variety of social science disciplines, most notably psychology (predominantly psychoanalysis) and sociology. First, the authors will introduce to jealousy as an emotion. Then they present a number of psychoanalytic/psychological and sociological perspectives and studies on jealousy. Following this, they illustrate some of the differences between respectively envy and jealousy – two emotions that are sometimes confused in everyday language and understanding. Finally, the chapter digs into some selected empirical studies that have provided knowledge of different forms of jealousy and conceptualized jealousy in different specific contexts.