We suggest that morbid jealousy falls on the extreme end of a jealousy continuum. Thus, many features associated with normal jealousy will be present in individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy. We apply Boyer & Lienard's (B&L's) prediction one (P1; target article, sect. 7.1) to morbid jealousy, suggesting that fitness-related life-cycle dimensions predict sensitivity to cues, and frequency, intensity, and content of intrusive thoughts of partner infidelity. (Published Online February 8 2007).

Previous research suggests that individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy have jealousy mechanisms that are activated at lower thresholds than individuals with normal jealousy, but that these mechanisms produce behavior that is similar to individuals with normal jealousy. We extended previous research documenting these similarities by investigating sex differences in partner-directed violence committed by individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy. The results support some of our predictions. For example, a greater percentage of men than women (...) diagnosed with morbid jealousy used physical violence, attempted to kill, and actually killed their partners, and used their hands rather than an object to kill their partners. These results replicate results generated for individuals with normal jealousy. Discussion addresses implications of the current research and highlights directions for future research on the psychology of morbid jealousy. (shrink)

We describe delusional disorder–jealous type (“morbid jealousy”) with the adaptationist perspective used by Darwinian psychiatrists and evolutionary psychologists to explain the relatively common existence and continued prevalence of mental disorders. We then apply the “harmful dysfunction” analysis to morbid jealousy, including a discussion of this disorder as (1) an end on a continuum of normal jealousy or (2) a discrete entity. (Published Online November 9 2006).

In 1910, Karl Jaspers wrote a seminal essay on morbid jealousy in which he laid the foundation for the psychopathological phenomenology that through his work and the work of Hans Gruhle and Kurt Schneider, among others, would become the ...

Violence against women is a growing health problem, especially when perpetrated in intimate relationships. Despite increasing attention, there is little comparative evidence on the different types of violence involved and there is a paucity of research on sexual femicides. This study examines cases of violence against women in northern Italy, focusing on sexual and non-sexual femicides and comparing them with rape that does not result in femicides. The sample included 500 women who were victims of sexual and non-sexual femicides, and (...) of rape. Results show sexual femicides mostly involved unknown victims or women who were prostitutes. Sexual femicidal offenders used improper weapons to kill their victims, acted in secluded locations, and fled the crime scene; their crime was more likely the result of predatory intentions, with antisociality and sexual deviance being the most significant factors related to this type of femicide. The criminal and violent pattern that characterized sexual femicides in this study shared significant similarities with the pattern of violence involved in rape. Rape victims were in fact mostly unknown, or involved in a brief relationship with their killer. When the victim was known it was more likely that the abuse occurred at home and in front of the woman’s children. Rapists were often under the effect of alcohol or drugs. Non-sexual femicides mainly involved known victims, and they were more often committed in the context of domestic disputes. It was not seldom that the long relationship between the victim and perpetrator was likely to be characterized by contentiousness, suggesting that the woman was often victim of an oppressive climate of emotional tension and domination. Morbid jealousy contributed to aggravating the tone of a controlling relationship. Non-sexual femicides bore more similarities to cases of rape within the pattern of intimate partner violence. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for prevention and intervention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DESIRE, EMULATION, AND ENVY IN THE PORTRAIT OFA LADY Lahoucine Ouzgane University ofAlberta Our heroine....wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such ways, this lady presented herself as a model. "I should like awfullyto be50/" Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once....It took no great (...) time indeed for her to feel, as the phrase is, under an influence. (The Portrait ofa Lady 1 63) Isabel considered [Osmond] with interest. "You seem to me to be always envying some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; today it's poor Lord Warburton." "My envy's not dangerous....I don't want to destroy the people—1 only want to be them." (The Portrait 251) Henry James' The Portrait ofa Lady (1881) chronicles the stages through which Isabel Archer of Albany moves to become Mrs. Gilbert Osmond ofRome. Most critics agree that the transition in Isabel's life is due to her natural disposition and to the influence ofthe characters around her. But while the nature ofthis influence can be traced directly to Madame Merle's machinations, Isabel's character itselfhas elicited a great deal of analysis. L.C. Knights, for instance, finds "wilfulness as well as vulnerability in the attitudes [Isabel] brings to bear on experience" (12); TonyTannerconcludesthat "[her] theories and imagined versions ofreality Lahoucine Ouzgane115 are generated behind closed doors and closed windows" (76); Juliet McMaster perceives an element ofperversity in Isabel: "On the one hand, like atrue American, she is ardently engaged in life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness; but on the other she is morbidly attracted by their opposites, and devotes herself to death, and immobility, and suffering" (51); Leon Edel (1968) detects egotism in Isabel—but one "which is limited and damaging to the self (111)—unlike Osmond's, which is destructive of other people. Finally, in his essay "I Don't Like Isabel Archer," Marc Bousquet calls Isabel "selfish, naïve, ill-attuned to the feelings of others despite her education, an emblem ofcaprice and poorjudgment" (197). Since the essence ofthe romantic is desire, I suggest that in order to better understand the central event of The Portrait—Isabel's decision to marry Osmond, an action generally characterized as "perverse" or "morbid"—we see Isabel Archer as a subject of what René Girard calls "mimetic desire." According to Girard (1978), "The standard view [of imitation], derived from Plato's mimesis via Aristotle's Poetics, has always excluded one essential human behavior from the types subject to imitation—namely, desire and, more fundamentally still, appropriation" (vii). Central to Girard's thought is the theory of "mimetic" or "triangular desire," developed in his first book Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque (1961) and elaborated in his later works:1 a character desires an object, not for itself, but for the value lent to it by the desire ofanother. Don Quixote, for instance, believes that true chivalric existence can be experienced onlythrough acareful imitation ofAmadis ofGaul, who seems to him to personify ideal knightly behavior. Don Quixote's desires are thus "mediated": the subject pursues objects determinedforhim bythe mediator of desire. In this respect, the directions taken and influences exerted by snobbery, vanity, jealousy, emulation, envy, rivalry, resentment, hatred, renunciation, and sacrifice form the center of Girard's critical thinking. "This triangle of subject, object, and mediator," Bruce Bassoff notes, "is similar to Thorstein Veblen's model of 'conspicuous consumption,' where 'keeping up with the Joneses' means desiring what they possess regardless ofthe real value ofthe object" (126). For Girard, however, it is not merely a question ofdesiring what the Joneses possess, but ofdesiring what they themselves appear to be; Girard calls this desire "metaphysical" because it is aimed at the mediator's being. Veblen describes the phenomenon in its 'See especially the third part of Things Hidden since the Foundation ofthe World and chapters 3, 4, and 5 of The Girard Reader. 1 16 Desire, Emulation, andEnvy in "The Portrait ofa Lady " economic manifestations only, but through an extensive analysis ofmajor literary works by Cervantes, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoyevsky, Girard unravels the... (shrink)

In this chapter, Natasha McKeever and Luke Brunning consider (sexual) jealousy in romantic life. They argue that jealousy is best understood as an emotional response to the threatened loss of love or attention, to which one feels deserving, because of a rival. Furthermore, the general value of jealousy can be questioned, and jealousy’s instrumental value needs to be balanced against a range of potential harms. They assess two potential ways of managing jealousy (which are not (...) mutually exclusive)—firstly by adopting a policy of monogamy and secondly by engaging in emotional work. Neither of these methods is easy, and neither will solve jealousy altogether, but Brunning and McKeever argue that the second strategy should be taken more seriously. (shrink)

We review the jealousy literature and present our Dynamic Functional Model of Jealousy, which argues that jealousy evolved and has its own unique motivational state aimed at preventing others from usurping important relationships. It has a core form that exists in infants and nonhuman animals and an elaborated form in humans that emerges as cognitive sophistication develops. The DFMJ proposes that jealousy is an unfolding process with early and late phases that can be differentially impacted by (...) relationship and personality factors. It also notes the importance of looking at multiple concomitants of jealousy, including action tendencies. We discuss how jealousy fits with current emotion theories and suggest that theories of specific emotions need to be broadened. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point a previous work by the author which reviewed early philosophical sources on jealousy and proposed both a conceptual and moral account of this much-maligned emotion, the present article reviews the relevant philosophical literature from the last decade or so. Most noticeable is how scarce those sources still are. Special attention is given, however, to a new conceptual model proposed by Purshouse and Fredericks which rejects the standard architectonic of jealousy as a three-party compound (...) emotion. While the essential contours of the new model are rejected, Fredericks is shown to offer some powerful misgivings about putative instrumentalist defences of jealousy. In addition to this new model, a number of other recent writings about jealousy – historical, conceptual and moral – are subjected to critical scrutiny in this overview article. (shrink)

Jealousy has been disparaged as psychologically debilitating and morally flawed since well before Shakespeare wrote Othello and is indeed represented—particularly well—as far back as in Homer's portrayal of gods and goddesses in The Iliad. According to some of these traditional views, often shared by philosophers, psychologists and the general public, jealousy is the sign, if not of an irredeemably corrupt mind, then at least of an excessively possessive and insecure character. But does jealousy always indicate some sort (...) of flaw or failure? Is jealousy rerehensible in all contexts? In the present paper, I intend to suggest some modifications to the view that it is, by giving jealousy a more sympathetic and charitable hearing than it normally receives, and suggesting that jealousy might, in some cases, be justifiable. (shrink)

The conceptions of jealousy used by philosophical writers are various, and, this paper suggests, largely inadequate. In particular, the difference between jealousy and envy has not yet been plausibly specified. This paper surveys some past analyses of this distinction and addresses problems with them, before proposing its own positive account of jealousy, developed from an idea of Leila Tov-Ruach(a.k.a. A. O. Rorty). Three conditions for being jealous are proposed and it is shownhow each of them helps to (...) tell the emotion apart from some distinct species of envy.It is acknowledged that the referents of the two terms are, to some extent, overlapping,but shown how this overlap is justified by the psychologies of the respective emotions. (shrink)

This paper explores jealousy in Unamuno’s drama El otro. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of emotion, I will argue that for the Spanish author jealousy gives the subject a sense of self. The paper begins by embedding Unamuno’s philosophical anthropology in the context of contemporary emotion theory. It then presents the drama as an investigation into the affective dimension of self-identity. The third section offers an analysis of jealousy as an emotion of self-assessment. The final section discusses how (...) this drama can be regarded as a piece of philosophical work. (shrink)

Jealousy often wreaks havoc among those who love each other. There are many different forms of jealousy. These can be brought to light by scrutiny of grammar, which discloses the scope and limits of the concept of jealousy and hence too of the emotion it subsumes. In Bronzino's painting, Jealousy has a livid complexion (a mixture of yellow and black bile). Robert Herrick's poem in Anthony Frederick Sandys's painting, however, associates jealousy with yellow. In this, (...) he too was following the doctrine of the humours, which explained jealousy by reference to an excess of the choleric humour of yellow bile that causes anger, irritability, boldness, envy, jealousy, and courage. The chapter elaborates the manifold differences between two emotions, envy and jealousy, and the corresponding character traits and motives. The comparison involves numerous for the most parts, and normallys. (shrink)

_A witty and insightful investigation into the green-eyed monster’s role in our lives_ Compete, acquire, succeed, enjoy: the pressures of living in today’s materialistic world seem predicated upon jealousy—the feelings of rivalry and resentment for possession of whatever the other has. But while our newspapers abound with stories of the sometimes droll, sometimes deadly consequences of sexual jealousy, Peter Toohey argues in this charmingly provocative book that jealousy is much more than the destructive emotion it is commonly (...) assumed to be. It helps as much as it harms. Examining the meaning, history, and value of jealousy, Toohey places the emotion at the core of modern culture, creativity, and civilization—not merely the sexual relationship. His eclectic approach weaves together psychology, art and literature, neuroscience, anthropology, and a host of other disciplines to offer fresh and intriguing contemporary perspectives on violence, the family, the workplace, animal behavior, and psychopathology. Ranging from the streets of London to Pacific islands, and from the classical world to today, this is an elegant, smart, and beautifully illustrated defense of a not-always-deadly sin. (shrink)

Young men are more distressed by a partner’s sexual infidelity, whereas young women are more distressed by a partner’s emotional infidelity. The present research investigated (a) whether the sex difference in jealousy replicates in an older sample, and (b) whether younger people differ from older people in their selection of the more distressing infidelity scenario. We presented forced-choice dilemmas to 202 older people (mean age = 67 years) and to 234 younger people (mean age = 20 years). The sex (...) difference replicated in the older sample. In addition, older women were less likely than younger women to select a partner’s emotional infidelity as more distressing than a partner’s sexual infidelity. Discussion offers directions for future work on sex differences and age differences in jealousy. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point a previous work by the author which reviewed early philosophical sources on jealousy and proposed both a conceptual and moral account of this much-maligned emotion, the present article reviews the relevant philosophical literature from the last decade or so. Most noticeable is how scarce those sources still are. Special attention is given, however, to a new conceptual model proposed by Purshouse and Fredericks which rejects the standard architectonic of jealousy as a three-party compound (...) emotion. While the essential contours of the new model are rejected, Fredericks is shown to offer some powerful misgivings about putative instrumentalist defences of jealousy. In addition to this new model, a number of other recent writings about jealousy – historical, conceptual and moral – are subjected to critical scrutiny in this overview article. (shrink)

The two central emotions of pride and jealousy have long been held to have no role in moral judgements, and have been a source of controversy in both ethics and moral psychology. Kristjan Kristjansson challenges this common view and argues that emotions are central to moral excellence and that both pride and jealousy are indeed ingredients of a well-rounded virtuous life.

This paper critically assesses the widespread claim that jealousy is a response to infidelity. According to this claim, herewith called the entitlement theory, jealousy is only an appropriate response to a relationship between a loved one and a rival if, by entertaining this relationship, the loved one does not treat the jealous person the way she is entitled to be treated. I reconstruct different versions of ET, each of them providing a different answer to the question why we (...) should assume that jealousy is a response to infidelity. I show that even the most plausible versions enjoy less argumentative support than it seems at first sight. The positive aim of this paper is to present a more inclusive account of jealousy as an alternative to ET. According to this account, jealousy serves to disturb the rival relationship and to gain the attention and affection of the loved person. Jealousy so understood is not only an appropriate response to infidelity but has wider appropriateness conditions. However, it plays a role in the negotiation of norms concerning exclusivity in personal relationships. The inclusive account does justice to the continuity and commonalities between adult and infant protest against rival relationships. (shrink)

Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens examines the sensation, expression, and literary representation of envy and jealousy in Classical Athens.

The article by Chung and Harris brings together an impressive array of literature to formulate a dynamic functional model of jealousy. There is much to like about the model. However, one concern is how it advances a theory of jealousy. Another concern is how the DFMJ operates over time, with different social groups, and cross-culturally. In general, however, the model offers a useful way to think about jealousy for the future.

This essay is a critique of the two chapters on jealousy in Jerome Neu's book A Tear is an Intellectual Thing. The rival — as anobject of both fear and hatred — is of central importance in romantic jealousy, but it is here argued that the role of the rival cannot be fully understood in Neu's account of jealousy and that shame (not noted by Neu) must be seen as central to the concept of jealousy if (...) the role of the rival is to be fully understood. (shrink)

Compersion is an important concept for non-monogamous people. Often described as jealousy's opposite, compersion labels positive feelings toward the intimacy of a beloved with other people. Since many people think jealousy is ordinary, intransigent, and even appropriate, compersion can seem psychologically and ethically dubious. I make the case for compersion, arguing it focuses on the flourishing of others and is thus not akin to pride, vicarious enjoyment, or masochistic pleasure. People cultivate compersion by softening their propensity to be (...) jealous and by attending to the flourishing of others, which requires them to tackle entitlement and temper vulnerability. I argue that jealousy is not a valuable emotional disposition; its instrumental benefits are minor, unstable, and have to be traded against the harms of aggression. Arguments that conclude that jealousy is a virtue rest on contentious premises and overlook the practical question as to whether jealousy and compersion could be cultivated together. (shrink)

KNUTSEN IR, TERRAGNI L and FOSS C. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 348–358 Morbidly obese patients and lifestyle change: constructing ethical selvesIn contemporary societies, bodily size is an important part of individuals’ self‐representation. As the number of persons clinically diagnosed as morbidly obese increases, programmes are developed to make people reduce weight by changing their lifestyle, and for some, by bariatric surgery. This article presents findings from interviews with 12 participants undergoing a prerequisite course prior to bariatric surgery that is intended (...) both as a preparation for further (surgical) treatment and as a tool to empower individuals regarding lifestyle changes. In this study, we investigate how power operates by looking at how the participants position themselves throughout the course. Findings reveal how participants construct their ability to act in line with norms of lifestyle change. They do this by positioning themselves as both included group members and as ‘morally’ acceptable individuals. Despite some resistance, the participants tend to glide into the role of ‘good patients’ acting in compliance with the aims of the course in their hope and striving for new positions as ‘normal‐sized’. The intention in the course is to empower individuals towards lifestyle changes. The findings provide a basis to question whether these kinds of courses create new forms of compliance and dependency. (shrink)

The “Morbid Fear of the Subjective” (copyright by Roy Wood Sellars) represents a key-element of the American naturalist debate of the Mid-twentieth century. On the one hand, we are witnessing to the unconditional trust in the objectivity of scientific discourse, while on the other (and as a consequence) there is the attempt to exorcise the myth of the “subjective” and of its metaphysical privateness. This theoretical roadmap quickly assumed the shape of an even sociological contrast between the “democraticity” of (...) natural sciences and the fanaticism implicit in supernatural metaphysical systems. In between these two extremes stood phenomenology, in its early days on American soil. Its notion of “evidence”, which is less easily to naturalize than it might seem, was in fact hardly consistent with the widespread concept of “natural experience” of the world. (shrink)

This study is based on the 1983 Rural Health Survey of Ethiopia. Patterns and levels of child morbidity by age, sex, geographic region, and sanitary facilities are examined. Morbidity levels peak in the second year of life. Diarrhoeal diseases are of major importance, especially among infants and toddlers. Parasitic diseases, and respiratory diseases other than pneumonia, become increasingly important with age.There are no significant sex differentials in morbidity except for higher rates of diarrhoeal diseases among female children. Geographic differentials are (...) quite marked with particularly high morbidity levels from all disease types in the western mountainous regions of Ethiopia. Access to high quality drinking water, a latrine, and garbage disposal, are strongly related to reduced overall morbidity levels, though not necessarily to reduced diarrhoeal disease levels. (shrink)

Chariton’s novel, Chaereas and Callirhoe, is intensely interested not only in the emotional experience of the protagonists but also in the emotional effect the narrative has on readers. Among the many emotions depicted within the text, one stands out for its architectonic function: jealousy. Jealousy articulates the plot and propels it forward. Jealousy is also represented as a fundamentally “readerly” emotion: scenes of reading focus on the potential of written texts to stir jealous emotions. Similarly, scenes of (...) embedded narration focus on the jealous reactions of narratees. The plot achieves closure when Chaereas learns to manage his jealousy as narratee and narrator. His experience, however, has implications also for Chariton and his readers. The text’s representation of jealousy as a narrative and textual force speaks both to the experience of writing in a culture that prizes the imitation of prestigious models and to the experience of reading a text that self-consciously hybridizes those models. (shrink)

In this study conducted during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, I explored how trait morbid curiosity was related to interest in 1) factual information about Coronavirus that was specifically morbid; 2) general factual information about Coronavirus; 3) pandemic and virus genres of films and TV shows; and 4) genres of film and TV shows that center around threat more broadly. Participants who scored high in morbid curiosity reported increased interest, compared to usual, in pandemic/virus genres as well as (...) horror and thriller genres. Morbidly curious participants were also more interested specifically in morbid information about Coronavirus. Furthermore, disgust sensitivity was unrelated to these preferences. These results provide initial evidence that trait morbid curiosity can predict particular media preferences in the face of a real threat, and that morbid curiosity may reflect an adaptive predisposition in some individuals toward learning about the dan­gerous and disgusting aspects of a threat. (shrink)

Envy involves the wish to have something that someone else has; jealousy involves the wish not to lose something that the subject has and someone else does not. Envy and jealousy would seem to involve a similar emotional attitude. Both are concerned with a change in what one has: either a wish to obtain or a fear of losing. This is not a negligible distinction, however. The wish not to lose something is notably different from the wish to (...) obtain something and this difference has significant implications. (shrink)

We clarify aspects of our Dynamic Functional Model of Jealousy in response to D’Arms and Stets. Our model proposes that jealousy is an evolved motivational state that arises over threat by a rival to one’s relationship or some aspect of one’s relationship. The formation or loss of relationships rarely occurs instantaneously. Therefore, we argue that jealousy, whose goal is to remove or reduce the rival threat, can occur over a longer time course than is often assumed in (...) theories of specific emotions. We further suggest that other emotions such as grief and fear also can occur over extended periods. This raises challenges for emotion theories that assume that emotions must be short-lived. (shrink)

Schadenfreude, gluckschmerz, jealousy, and hate are distinctive emotional phenomena, understudied and deserving of increased attention. The authors of this special section have admirably synthesized large literatures, describing major characteristics, eliciting conditions, and functions. We discuss the contributions of each article as well as the issues they raise for theories of emotions and some remaining questions, and suggest ways in which these might be profitably addressed.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

To operationalize the methodological assessment of evolutionary psychology, three requirements are proposed that, if satisfied, would show that a hypothesis is not a just-so story: (1) theoretical entrenchment (i.e., that the hypothesis under consideration is a consequence of a more fundamental theory that is empirically well-confirmed across a very wide range of phenomena), (2) predictive success (i.e., that the hypothesis generates concrete predictions that make it testable and eventually to a certain extent corroborated), and (3) failure of rival explanations (i.e., (...) that crucial and successful predictions attributed to the hypothesis in question cannot be derived from alternative hypotheses). The author argues that the hypothesis about evolutionary sex differences in human jealousy satisfies all three requirements. Key Words: evolutionary psychology • adaptationism • philosophy of science • testability. (shrink)

The relation between sex hormones and responses to partner infidelity was explored in two studies reported here. The first confirmed the standard sex difference in relationship jealousy, that males (n=133) are relatively more distressed by a partner’s sexual infidelity and females (n=159) by a partner’s emotional infidelity. The study also revealed that females using hormone-based birth control (n=61) tended more toward sexual jealousy than did other females, and reported more intense affective responses to partner infidelity (n=77). In study (...) two, 47 females were assessed four times across one month. Patterns of response to partner infidelity did not vary by week of menstrual cycle, but significant relations between salivary estradiol level and jealousy responses were obtained during the time of rising and high fertility risk. The implications, at least for females, are that any evolved psychological, affective, or behavioral dispositions regarding reproduction-related relationships are potentially moderated by estradiol, and that the use of synthetic hormones may disrupt this relation. (shrink)

This paper responds to an ingenious footnote from Robert Nozick’s book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Using a table of four possible situations, Nozick defines what it is to be jealous, envious, begrudging, spiteful and competitive. I deny a claim that Nozick makes for his table, a claim needed for these definitions. I also point out that Nozick fails to capture what he has in mind by jealousy.

I argue for the view that envy and jealousy are distinct emotions, whose crucial difference is that envy involves a perception of lack while jealousy involves a perception of loss. I start by noting the common practice of using ‘envy’ and ‘jealousy’ almost interchangeably, and I contrast it with the empirical evidence that shows that envy and jealousy are distinct, albeit similar and often co-occurring, emotions. I then argue in favor of a specific way of understanding (...) their distinction: the view that envy is a response to a perceived lack of a valuable object, while jealousy is a response to a perceived loss of a valuable object. I compare such a view with the most compelling alternative theories, and show that it accounts better for paradigmatic cases. I conclude by showing how the lack vs. loss model can handle complications: ambiguous cases, that is, when it is epistemically unclear whether one experiences lack or loss; hybrid cases, that is, when one seems to experience both lack and loss; and borderline cases, that is, when it is metaphysically unclear whether one experiences lack or loss. (shrink)