6. The Psychology of Jealousy - why we feel so insecure, lessons from polyamory and more

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the Very unprofessional podcast, whereby I your unqualified guide talk through some of the big changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Well, okay, it's been a big week. First week of August has absolutely blown by, and we're also halfway through the year, which is insane time as moving people, I'm having a flipping marvelous time of it all. I also just wanted to quickly start off by saying a big thank you to all those who have been listening to my podcast so far. I don't know. This is a real passion project for me. I love talking about these concepts and getting to deep dive into the psychological theory behind their occurrence, especially in our twenties. So I'm really really grateful that people actually are finding it interesting and want to listen to me ramble and thanks for all the messages and the love. It just means a lot. And if you have feedback, please send it my way. I obviously want to hear it. And just a huge thanks to everyone who has already reached out. So that sappy, happy side out of the way. This week we're going to be talking about the Green Monster. So jealousy. Not only is it an amazing Olivio Rodrigo song, but it's also a really bloody interesting topic to look into as someone who I would say often gets that jealous surge at times. So hopefully I can spread some cool knowledge about what I have discovered in my time reading up on this yeah, and just kind of investigating jealousy. Also a big shout out to a friend of the show, Carolina, for suggesting this episode on the poll I ran on my Instagram a few weeks ago. I thought this just would be a great concept to break down, particularly for those in their twenties. I think jealousy is a weird emotion, and really being able to break down why it's so intense, why it leaves us feeling so ikey, is important so that you know, A, we don't feel bad when we do get jealous and B we can kind of manage it and ensure that it doesn't harm our friendships, our relationships and overall well being. Firstly, jealousy is a universal emotion. It's not just those in their twenties that have that weird pang of emotion or obsessiveness and insecurity in our relationships or towards another person. But young people are more prone to jealousy than any other age group, particularly those between the nineteen and twenty six age range. So there was this research done by the University of California and they found eighty percent of people aged thirty or under had felt an attack of the green eyed monster I guess in the past year, compared to just sixty nine percent of people over fifty. So a real big age difference there, or just a difference in frequency, I guess amongst different age groups. I think especially when we're young and in love or just feeling more vulnerable, jealousy can be a lot more common, especially in romantic relationships, but also friendships or towards people we may not even know. And jealousy it's not just about love or being protective of a relationship. We can feel jealous of basically anything you know, looks, possessions, as well as obviously our partners and friends. But what really often drives jealousy is unfortunately something a little bit deeper, So low self esteem and poor self image is typically more common in those who report feeling more jealous towards those in their lives, and in one study, overwhelmingly people actually envied others of their own gender more so men envied other men and women envied other women more consistently. Even in domains like financial and occupation or success where you can imagine that you know, a woman might envy a man for his better pay or status, that usually wasn't the case. It's normally those who are the same gender that you identify ass that normally receive a great deal more of your envy or your jealousy. But like I kind of mentioned, jealousy, it often comes from a lack of security in what we have, or a lack of certainty or trust, especially in the case of relationships, And yeah, it can be a pretty terrible feeling and create problems. But it's so important not to suppress feelings of jealousy, especially when we're young, because in this time we do have the opportunity to examine the origins of the emotion before it becomes a pattern of our behavior and a pattern of our thought. That's why I think it is so crucial to discuss it in relation to twenty something year olds. You know, in this time of our lives, we have all these new experiences, we're learning what a relationship is, what boundaries we want for ourselves. We're establishing our sense of security and trust in ourselves and also those around us. So jealousy can be a real challenge, not just because it can be pretty common, but also because none of us want to be you know, that jealous person in any situation. You know, the jealous girlfriend or the jealous boyfriend. So let's examine the psychology of jealousy. Why is this green monster such a hard one to shake off? Where does it kind of come from, where does it emerge from? And what's the purpose of jealousy? How can we acknowledge, address, and move on from jealousy before it kind of creates havoc in our personal lives or leads to us sacrificing amazing relationships intimately and otherwise. Okay, so let's clear one thing up firstly. Although I've kind of already said this, jealousy is an entirely natural emotion to feel, it's not a primary emotion. It's rather the combination of another of a number of other primary emotions which we might be a little bit better at recognizing. So let's just make up a scenario. So imagine you've been talking with this guy, this girl, person of your choosing. Maybe it's best to kind of close your eyes and picture someone someone that you've really liked at some stage, or maybe you currently like them, someone that you've been talking to. Maybe you just really vibe with them, you have good chemistry, love spending time with them, and maybe you're hoping it will go further, maybe you'll end up dating or something like that, but basically you really like them, and imagine that feeling of just being consumed by someone thinking about them constantly. Then you see them with someone else, probably most likely in Brandon or fucking Dixon. Woolli's definitely Cambrid coincidence. This obviously has happened to me before. But you see them as someone else, and you just can imagine that feeling for a second, that heart swelling mixture of anger, of anxiety and sadness. It's pretty terrible, And yeah, we kind of need to realize, like, what is the emotional core of jealousy. We can recognize that feeling. I know we've probably all felt jealous of something in our lives before, but jealousy is not one emotion. You know, you're not just jealous, it's a combination of two primary emotions that kind of create our overall emotional state. So firstly, there is anxiety or fear, mostly around losing something, something being taken from you, or not being able to attain something that you would like. And this fear or anxiety is what creates that initial almost nervous gut feeling, increased heart rate, and just general discomfort. And then the anger tends to come next, almost as a defense towards your fear. So the anger is often the main what is that main feeling that we have when feeling jealous, And you may also feel a lot of doubt and dread. And I also read another study which was a bit more anew It was a newer study, and they suggested that jealousy might also be made up of grief, So not just fear and anger, but grief or just this like momentary pain at the thought of losing a loved object or person. And because these emotions are so strong, they can and often carry with us. It's not just a momentary emotional state. Things like grief, as we know, they don't leave once you've felt it for a couple of minutes. So That's why jealousy can kind of travel with us through a relationship, even after you know an issue has been talked about or rectified. But I think the other thing to make very clear is jealousy is never intentional. It's simply the emotion or the combination of emotions that we feel when we suspect losing something we cherish, and it can be triggered by heaps of factors. But we can see why it's common in relationships settings, especially when we're young, and those losses can be so raw and new, So this threat will often come from a third party, and it can make someone feel as if they're being replaced. So our brains do commonly link jealousy to romantic relationships. For example, a boyfriend who starts an argument when his girlfriend gets a text from another man, or maybe we run into an x and you know they've got someone new with them. These are common triggers for a jealous person, but we can feel threatened in relationships that aren't romantic as well. You know, friendships co workers. Family members is also a big one, especially siblings that are close in age. I found it was a really interesting study that showed family larger families or families with lots of siblings or kids close in age, we're more likely to report greater instances of jealousy within the family dynamic. But this all kind of happens when we're young, and as we get older, we do understand jealousy a bit better, especially because we've been able to navigate it in the past or having had experiences that have taught us what to expect. But if you're always, if you always handle jealousy by first letting the anger take over and seeking to avoid the pain, by ignoring those feelings or acting in something or from someplace other than your wise mind, then you will create a behavioral pattern in reaction to these feelings. So when you feel threatened, this acts as a trigger. So behavioral models in psychology explain this really, really well. So behaviorism is the kind of area that probably best relates to this. So at first, threatening situations that create jealousy act as the unconditioned stimulus. So essentially, we naturally feel angry and anxious, perhaps experienced grief if you know, our partner was talking to other people, or someone we know got a job we really wanted. However, say that your reaction to that jealousy is to cut these people off, is to suppress the emotion not address it. After this reaction is repeatingly paired with the jealous feelings over time, Soon we'll just behave this way unconsciously, unconsciously without even realizing it. So you start to even avoid situations where you believe you might be made to feel jealous, so avoiding relationships or leaving the moment that you feel like you're not valued or there's someone to be envious of. So it can become pretty easy to be what we know as a jealous person. But are some people They are more prone to jealousy than others. So psychological factors that lead to a jealous personality type may include low self esteem, which we talked about, So a sense of inadequacy is often a cause of jealousy that isn't relationship dependent. People who feel inadequate don't present their sense of personal impotence in relationships alone, and this suggests that it has a lot more to do with a person's reflection of themselves more than just sexual or intimate possessiveness. Some other factors which have been consistently linked to a jealous personality type is anxiety, moodiness, depression, if you've got possessiveness and securities, a fear of abandonment, which I really want to talk about in an upcoming episode because I think it would be really interesting if you have a tendency towards codependency as well, and kind of alongside that fear of abandonment, if you have an anxious attachment style. So when someone's personality is perhaps dominated by any or all of these factors, jealousy it's not likely going to be a foreign emotion for them, and this can make it hard to have long lasting and meaningful relationships then, both romantic and in the friends sense, when we are in our twenties, especially if you have acquired that learned response to situations that stir up jealous feelings. Okay, so far we've really demonstrate how jealousy is very much a relational combination of emotions, So it emerges primarily in response to our social relationships with others, particularly close relationships such as friendships or romantic connections. And I've really tried to stress my perspective at least that jealousy is a natural emotional state in its pure form at least, but it then can slowly become cultivated and more prominent due to reinforcing behaviors. So if my interpretation is correct, not saying that it is, but this is just what I've kind of gathered. Envy and jealousy. They are intrinsic and can be very powerful emotions. Yeah, but not those that we need to flee from or feel embarrassed by, as long as we communicate with others and react to those twinges from a wise mind. Douse, my therapist would say, shout out to Josie, but not an emotional mind. So a wise mind is the best way to go about dealing with with feelings of jealousy. But let's offer another perspective. We're not one sided on this show. We all know that in our twenties, relationships they don't all tend to look the same way. There's a lot more freedom to be experimental or do things differently, whether that's by keeping a relationship open, being polly friends with benefits. It's no longer the standard man and women girlfriend and boyfriend situation for many many reasons, and I think especially during this time. You know, why don't you keep a relationship open if it's something that you both feel comfortable with. You know, we're young, there are a lot of people out there to love, and we have our whole lives to be coupled with one person, if that's inevitably what you decide to do. So the reason I'm introducing polly and open relationships is because it kind of provides a counter argument to this idea that jealousy is intrinsic. So polly and open relationships, they're not a new thing. You know, non monogamy dates all the way back to BCA times. There's evidence that's existed in Rome, China, Mongolia. It's also permitted a number of religions, obviously Islam, where it's acceptable to have up to four wabs, but obviously also in the Mormon faith as well. But it hasn't been you know, all around, very accepted or welcomed in the previous century, just in everyday life. And you know, until now, you know, it wasn't really something that people looked into, whereas these days, you know, you probably could find people who have this type of relationship and it really works for them. Also, i think it's probably important to recognize that historical and modern polyamory they're very different things. You know, his historical non monogamy, it was primarily for the purpose of procreation or reproduction, whereas now it can be for more reasons than just that. Okay, that was a bit of a historical to tangent or digression, the purpose of which was to introduce the idea that perhaps jealousy is not natural in romantic relationships. As I've previously suggested, so, polyamorous couples are often able to know that their partner was with other people and not experienced jealousy, and people in poly relationships tend to hold the idea that jealousy is actually culturally instilled to us, especially at a young age and in Western societies, where being envious of people can make us more competitive, which helps motivate success and accumulation, which are things of a lot of value in many Western cultures. Much like a lot of the psychological theory suggests, people in healthy polyamorous relationships may view jealousy more as an indication of a deeper sense of insecurity that has been created by this deeper social narrative, rather than being due to some innate sense of sexual possessiveness or jealousy that you know, an evolutionary perspective might say is the case, and this has some pretty surprising evidence that suggests jealousy may be cultural and socially specific. So one study hypothesized that aggression in jealousy situations it's correlated with the cultural importance attached to being married, are the limitations placed on non marital and extra marital sexual gratification. It's also linked to the emphasis of private property within a society and the requirement of personal descendants. So in societies where these social ideas are not dominant, feelings of jealousy are suspected to be to be less. And furthermore, in male dominated societies, jealousy was likely to be more common amongst all genders as well. This was another thing that they suggested, and the findings did show that in cultures that were less forcased on these certain characteristics of the social fabric, such as being married and having offspring, jealousy was less. Particularly of the four cultures that researchers examine, time men and women were less likely to express jealousy, as were pre industrial communities or those where obviously polyamory is the cultural norm. I think it is important to say though, although these groups did experience less jealousy, it was not at a level of being completely nonexistent. So jealousy, although it's culturally influenced in the frequency and intensity of expression, it does still seem to be universal in nature. Okay, So, if you're in your twenties and you're feeling that jealousy spike when you see your friends hanging out, or you know your partner's messaging someone else, or a coworkers getting more intention from your boss, do not fret for two reasons. Firstly, feelings of jealousy are unnatural, they're attached to some of our most fundamental emotions. And secondly, it's equally not your fault due to elements of our culture and that emphasis on possession as well as or possession is also as an attribute of success and dominance. So this fuels the need to have feelings of jealousy in order to motivate us to hold on to things that we see of as having value. Obviously, this does not give anyone listening the permission or the excuse to move into the territory of being pathologically jealous. So pathological jealousy it's when these feelings become clinical. It's also sometimes known as delusion or disorder. Look into it. It's it's kind of like a form of Schizzo effective disorder, and it occurs when people have these intrusive and repetitive but crucially, they're unfounded. They have these repetitive ideas that their romantic partner is cheating on them, essentially leading to increasingly possessive behavior. So, but there's no evidence of that, it's a delusion hence delusion or disorder. But it's really hard to treat. You know, these people have an unnatural pattern of thinking that has breached the territory of needing treatment and they very rarely have control over these jealous delusions. So it's it's it's a psychiatric disorder essentially, and although there is evidence that people can take antipsychotics, often the only way to overcome this disorder is to become comfortable with the idea that you know, yes, your partner might be cheating on you, even if there is no evidence. So you kind of have to live in the idea that this could be true, but you're okay with it. And a therapist would want their patient to accept this as a possibility, but also to be able to move forward. So basically the outcome for this disorder is that jealousy is never fully eliminated and it never really goes away. You still have a distrust of the person that you're with. You just learn to manage it better. So that is a pretty bleak outlook. But then again, we are talking about a disordered version of jealousy. So for the average Joe in their twenties or whatever age you might be, jealousy can be reduced and no, you do not need antipsychotics to do it, fortunately enough. So, seeing as jealousy can be brought on by so many varying factors, there's no really standard cure for the emotion, and in my opinion, I think if you can manage it in a healthy manner, it's not actually something to be avoided. Otherwise you do end up losing control of the emotion and that's when it becomes a problem. You know, you cannot go through life, especially in such a social and relational world, without experiencing jealousy, so you may as well become a custom to dealing with it when you're in your twenties and have less to lose and heaps to learn. So I think just noting that the emotion exists and is clouding your brain is the most important part. So basic acknowledgement therapy. You know, you can self administer, you don't have to go to headspace or anything. And jealousy, it's it's really normal, and it can be pretty tricky to thing to navigate when we're in our twenties. For example, you know, I found out my ex has a new girlfriend, and obviously there's some pretty intense jealousy followed with that. But understanding why I felt triggered and uncovering the emotions leading up to it, the insecurity that was creating this feeling, was really really useful. So when did I start feeling this way? Why do I feel threatened? Is it because I'm missing something? And what part of my personality are involved in these feelings of jealousy? Because I don't love this person anymore. I haven't been with them for a very long time. Why is it only now that that possessed is kind of clicking in? And I have this really good phrase that I use all the time. My friends know this, but I just think it's a really great way to explain this. And this is the phrase. If it still triggers you, if it still makes you jealous, then you still have some healing to do. Because jealousy, you know it's coming from an internal place or a sense of inadequacy, So addressing that root issue first will do wonders to lessen envy towards anyone really, So yeah, if it still triggers you, if it still makes you jealous, then you still have some healing to do. And there is no magical cute or jealousy can be analyzed and likely avoided in the future. Yes, but it's never going to be completely eliminated. And if you would like to reach that point, I think it would just include heaps of mindful nerves, heaps of therapy. You'd have to have a lot of honest and intimate conversations, which you're very much well come to do. But it does seem like a bit a bit of a challenge. You may as well just accept it, have those conversations and move on. And I know I have stressed as heaps and it can get a little bit preachy. But whether jealousy is culturally mediated or intrinsic, whichever theory you choose to believe, it's not something that can be ignored. You know, if you approach the entirety of your younger years simply looking to avoid pain or feelings of insecurity, what are you really getting out of your life? You know, of the avoidance of pain, there's a tradeoff for that, and the avoidance of jealousy. There's also a tradeoff for that as well. So embrace a healthy amount of jealousy. Let it remind you of what you need to work on personally and internally. Don't just project it onto the actions of other people. But what is your ego trying to communicate to you? And move from there? Just be open, be honest, acknowledged the feelings without kind of letting it fuck things up too much. So, yeah, why is note to finish on? I think I always provide like this very considered life advice at the end, whereas I'm over here being like, I get jealous all the time. I'm not afraid to hide it. But yeah, there's there's my two cents on the topic. And I really hope you enjoyed this episode. It was really really interesting to look into, I think because I've had these feelings of jealousy recently and it kind of got me down. I was like I'm not really a naturally jealous person like I was saying. It was in relation to someone that I don't really care about anymore, you know, I don't really need them in my life. Really moved on, but it was like a reminder of losing something that once I really valued. So yeah, I did a lot of kind of self acknowledgement therapy around it, and happy to report I am feeling okay now, but yeah, sorry, a little bit of a tangent. Thanks for listening, by the way, if you're still here getting all the juicy goss on my life. Also, if you are listening this far, let me know how the audio is because I've changed the thing that I'm recording it on and I'm sitting in a new location, so it might be kind of shit. Hopefully it's better. Just please let me know and remember to follow us on Instagram. And yeah, you can find this podcast wherever you get your podcasts Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, even And I hope you have an amazing second week of August. You know, it's fifteen degrees today, the sun is coming. I'm very excited for some some summer love and some you know, summer outdoors time and drinks. So anyhow, have an amazing week, and then thank you so much for listening.