The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote: "One suffers from two kinds of jealousy: that of love and that of self-love", a phrase perfectly attributable to both women and men. But is there a gender difference? Science has solved it.
Jealousy is a complex emotion that encompasses feelings ranging from suspicion, to anger, to fear, to humiliation. It affects people of all ages, genders and sexual orientations, and is generally aroused when a person perceives a threat to a valued relationship from a third party, whether real or imagined.
In the case of heterosexual people, men experience more jealousy when they are victims of a sexual deception, while women are more affected by jealousy when it is a deception of a sentimental nature.
This is revealed by a study conducted by a team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who concluded that jealousy in heterosexual couples is very different depending on gender.
The analysis details that heterosexual men react negatively more often when their partner has had sex with other people as opposed to if she has fallen in love or spends time with someone without having sex.
"Jealousy is activated when a relationship we care about is threatened. The function is probably to minimize threats to this relationship. Historically, these threats have been somewhat different for men and women," said Per Helge H. Larsen, co-author of the analysis published in the journal Nature.
The above, he explained, has to do with evolutionary psychology, around children, since if the woman is sexually unfaithful, it ultimately means that her partner may need to use his 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 to his having had sex with her.
The answer can also be explained historically, e.g., she and her child/children might suffer a loss of resources and status if he were to leave her for someone else.
In this sense, the study refers that, in the past, being left alone and helpless, facing social criticism as well as economic deprivation has more weight for women than a merely sexual deception.
However, the researchers noted that jealousy exists even before one is old enough to care for a partner.
Jealousy appears before the age of 16
The paper entitled "Investigating the emergence of sex differences in jealousy responses in a large community sample from an evolutionary perspective", by Per Helge H. Larsen, Mons Bendixen, Trond Viggo Grøntvedt, Andrea M. Kessler and Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, highlights that jealousy starts before the age of 16.
«Jealousy is a potentially costly reaction, perhaps especially for men before they are physically strong enough to defend themselves and their partners from rivals, and before they would normally have had the opportunity to have a stable partner through marriage," the co-author details. Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair.
In the analysis, which reviewed the cases of 1,266 16- to 19-year-olds in upper secondary education, the researchers observed that gender differences in the way jealousy was processed remained the same regardless of age, whether or not they had had sex or were in a stable relationship.
In this sense, they detailed that the young people analyzed presented the same parameters of jealousy as adults, so this difference does not seem to have anything to do with experience.
"We knew that this difference is established in the early 20s, but through our study we have shown that it appears even earlier," says Per Helge H. Larsen.
For his part, Ottensen Kennair refers that «the benefits of this early, gender-specific sexual jealousy must have outweighed its dangers. It may be that the early development of sexual jealousy is simply preparing us for adulthood and has no other function at an earlier age.".
It should be noted that the researchers suggest that this idea is speculation, and further research and theoretical development based on these findings is needed.
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