Jealousy: Definition, Examples, & How To Overcome It

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Jealousy is the combination of an unpleasant emotion, such as anger or fear, with thinking you may lose something you value. How do we overcome jealousy?​
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I know my first experiences of jealousy came at a very young age. I was not quite three years old when my mother gave birth to my younger sister. Suddenly I was not the center of attention anymore, and for the first time in my life, I knew anger and outrage. My memories of this are fuzzy, but my parents tell the story that I came to them with the proposition that they take my sister back to ​
the hospital – after all, that’s where they got her, right? – and when my plan was gently but firmly rejected, I later threw a wooden stool, handcrafted for me by a distant relative, into our fireplace.

My behaviors in this time period were typical of an oldest child whose role as his parents’ focal point had been usurped by a younger sibling. They were also, as we will see shortly, a classic example of jealousy in action. Jealousy is an experience by no means limited to children – we as adults probably face it on a routine, if not daily, basis. So how do we know when we are experiencing jealousy, and how do we overcome it?​
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What Is Jealousy? (A Definition)​

Jealousy is sometimes described as a complex emotion, which I think is a way of saying that it is an experience involving emotions in which multiple emotions may be present, and the thoughts that accompany those emotions are relevant, too (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009). Therefore, jealousy is the experience of some flavors of fear and/or anger as one thinks about the possibility of losing something valuable.
 
Let’s return to the toddler version of me, the one so jealous of his new sibling. He certainly felt both fear and anger in response to his parents’ changing priorities and the amount of attention they gave his new sister. He feared that he was no longer special in their eyes, and he resented not having as much attention and care as before. So the ingredients for jealousy were there: strong negative emotions and a potential, or in this case actual, loss of something important.

​​Is Jealousy Bad?

Some psychologists have expressed concern that we as a culture have started to pathologize jealousy (Mullen, 1991). Specifically, they have noted that some people interpret any expression of jealousy as representing a troubling degree of insecurity or immaturity in the person having the feeling. For example, if a person feels jealous when they see their partner engaged in animated conversation with someone else across the room at a party, the inclination might be to tell them to work on their self-confidence or to stop wanting to control their partner – both responses that invalidate the feeling of jealousy.
 
I agree that such a response may be an overreaction. While jealousy can certainly get out of hand and be a contributor to mental health issues and conflicts between people, it is also a part of our daily lives. I feel a twinge of jealousy when somebody else gets praised at work or when a exercise partner manages a physical feat I don’t quite think I can pull of myself. Heck, I even feel a little jealous when people eat food that I made and then offered to them! I don’t think my moments of jealousy are unusual; rather, there is a range of what we might call normative jealousy which most people experience at least some of the time.
 
The fact of the matter is that all emotions, including jealousy, have an adaptive function – we experience them because they help us take action to meet our needs. Feeling jealous of a partner tells us that we value the relationship; my being jealous of my colleagues or friends tells me that professional success and pushing myself in my hobbies matter to me. If I then get into action – constructive action – around my jealousy, the emotion may have served a really useful purpose. For example, if I respond to my jealousy by trying a little harder at my work or my hobbies, then my jealousy has helped me grow.​

Opposite of Jealousy​

The opposite of jealousy is to feel positive emotions when it seems that other people may get what we have, or what we want to have. Psychologists have paid particular attention to this phenomenon with regards to non-monogamous romantic relationships. It is normal for most people, including those in non-monogamous relationships, to feel some jealousy when they see their partner(s) connecting with other people. At the same time, in non-monogamous relationships, some people experience the opposite of jealousy when they know their partners are happily spending time with other people (Balzarini et al., 2021). This has been called compersion, and it is defined as taking joy in the sexual and relational fulfillment your partner gets in other relationships. Experiencing compersion seems to help individuals in open or non-exclusive relationships have more satisfying relationships (Balzarini et al., 2021).

Examples of Jealousy

We can think of jealousy as manifesting in our emotions, behaviors, and thoughts, and examples of jealousy abound in each category (Pfeiffer & Wong, 1989). To keep things simple, we will look first at examples of jealousy related to a romantic partner.
​
Jealous Thoughts

In terms of thoughts, we may know we are experiencing jealousy when we wonder whether our partners are physically or emotionally attracted to other people; when we grow suspicious of their relationship with someone else; and when we see other people they interact with as potential rivals for their affection. Again, these examples of jealousy are not necessarily good or bad – that is determined by how intense or distracting the thoughts are, and what we do with those thoughts.

​Jealous Behaviors

Behaviorally, jealousy can look like checking on our partners, such as by text; questioning them about their activities or their relationships with other people; or even such intrusive behaviors as checking the other person’s phone or going through their belongings. As you can see, these behaviors run the gamut from relatively common behaviors to things that might raise alarm bells for one’s partner.

Jealous Emotions

Finally, jealousy usually comes with anger, fear, or a mixture of both. So examples of feeling jealous might include fear when your partner remarks on the positive qualities of somebody they might be attracted to or anger when you think about your partner dating somebody else in the past. Again, some aspects of jealousy reflect a healthy desire to be close to and maintain a relationship, while others may reflect a desire to overly control the situation.

How Common Is Jealousy?

Let’s look at an example study on romantic jealousy to understand how common it is (Mullen & Martin, 1994). In this random sample of people living in a community in the United Kingdom, every single participant reported at least some jealousy of their partner. People whose jealousy was more intense were more likely to have lower self-esteem and to engage in behaviors like checking out their partner’s clothes, while those who were very high in self-esteem said they experienced very little jealousy.

I think this study provides helpful context on romantic jealousy. First of all, it is something common enough that virtually everyone experiences it. Second, how much jealousy we feel is probably influenced by key aspects of our personalities, such as how positively we feel about ourselves.​

Causes of Jealousy

Why do we get jealous? A prominent psychologist created a list of reasons that we might become jealous to an unhealthy degree (Ellis, 1996), which I will summarize here:

Insecurity and dependency. If we only feel good about ourselves when we are partnered with people, we may become jealous anytime that relationship seems threatened. This kind of neediness around love can lead to incessant checking that we are still loved and valued – which may try a partner’s patience and ultimately decrease feelings of love.

Difficulty tolerating frustration. We often do not get what we want in life, and some of us are better at tolerating those disappointments than others. Jealousy may result from our struggles to manage our disappointment. Having a hard time regulating our jealous emotions may also mean that we act on those emotions in unhealthy or hurtful ways, such as voicing inappropriate anger at a partner’s interactions with other people.

Experiences from our past. In childhood, we may have learned that relationships are unpredictable or that loss is common and out of our control. You can think of how children may grow resentful when their divorced parents start to date again. Or we may have these experiences in adulthood, such as when a partner is unfaithful or even passes away unexpectedly. All of these experiences could lead us to feel protective of our relationships with others to the point of jealousy.

Obsessive-compulsive tendencies. For a few of us, our relationships will become the subject of obsessive tendencies we possess. We may become conditioned to think that we need reassurance from our partners to feel okay.​

Jealousy vs Envy

Jealousy is a complex emotion regarding something we potentially or actually have, whereas envy is more clearly about something we do not have. We envy others for the things that they possess that we would like to have for ourselves (Parrott & Smith, 1993). So for example, I might be jealous of the attention my parents give to my other siblings, while I might envy my best friend for having a successful and attractive romantic partner while I am single.

Jealousy in Relationships​

Why do we get so jealous in romantic relationships? Our romantic partners are typically also our reproductive partners, so we have a strong evolutionary drive to ensure that they will remain faithful to us (Harris, 2003). Perhaps this is why situations that evoke threat to our romantic relationships seem to be some of the most powerful jealousy-inducing contexts (Salovey & Rodin, 1986).

The more solid our relationships are, the less jealousy we are likely to feel, although sometimes being especially close to our partners can make us feel even more protective of the special bond we have (Knobloch et al., 2001). Unfortunately, strong feelings of jealousy can also even be an explanation – but never an excuse! – for intimate partner violence, or aggression toward one’s romantic partner (Puente & Cohen, 2003).

How to Overcome Jealousy

How does one cope with jealousy or even overcome it entirely? Cognitive therapy approaches offer ways to try to change our thinking in jealous moments (Dolan & Bishay, 1996; Ellis, 1996).

First, we can identify and challenge irrational beliefs that may underlie our jealous reactions. If your best friend makes a new friend and starts spending lots of time with them, you may need to dispute statements that pop into your head like, “They must not like me anymore.” Do you have any evidence that they have stopped liking you? Or are you still spending time together but not as much as you used to?

Second, we can try to reframe the situation. What are some other ways to look at your best friend’s new friendship? Perhaps you could say to yourself, “I am afraid of losing time with my friend, but I do want them to be able to have as much fun with other people as possible, just the way I want that for myself.”
 
Third, you can explore what it would mean if your jealous thoughts turned out to be true. If your best friend was truly not interested in spending time with you anymore, would you never have a friend again? Or would you be sad but eventually start spending more time with other people, too?

Here is a video with further ideas about how to overcome jealousy:

Video: 7 Tips for Overcoming Jealousy In Relationships

Jealousy Quotes

  • “Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.” – Gene Tierney
  • “Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” – Erica Jong
  • “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.” – William Penn
  • “You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.” – Gary Allan
  • “There is no greater glory than love, nor any greater punishment than jealousy.” – Lope de Vega
  • “He that is jealous is not in love.” – Saint Augustine
  • “Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
  • “Jealousy – that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.” – Emil Cioran

Articles Related to Jealousy

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Jealousy

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Jealousy​

My experience of jealousy as a toddler is a pretty universal one; research tells us that most infants, because they are treated with such care and attention by their caregivers, become jealous when it is clear that they are not a caregiver’s number one priority in a given moment (Hart, 2016). But this is life! We cannot be the focus of others; reassurance will not be available on demand. Let’s let jealousy be a signal that something matters to us, and hopefully a reminder that we can take effective action to be more certain that we will remain connected with the things that matters to us (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009).​

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