Development Of Jealousy In Relationships Sociology Essay

Introduction

The development of relationship between individuals in the society has continued to experience different challenges, which could either build then them or break them, depending on the way these issues are handled. One of these challenges arises from jealousy factor in these relationships. Notably, there are many relationships between individuals in the United States and across the globe which have dissolved or rather ‘broken’ as is commonly referred to as a result of jealousy. In addition to this, there are similar relationships which are struggling due to the same issue. This has prompted researches on the society with a particular focus on relationship to determine how jealousy affects them. In reference to Leahy & Tirch (2008), jealousy is one of the most serious problems encountered in romantic relationships and it led to depression, hopelessness, anxiety, anger, attempts to control, intimidation, and in some cases death (p.18).

Therefore, this research summary will analyze the impact of jealousy on romantic relationships. Note that, by studying on jealousy as a factor among human beings, its impact on the mutual existence of relationships will be assessed. This will be build up on different perspectives, including how the relationship of a child and a parent impacts the development of jealousy in her and its later effects on his or her relationships, together with gender, physical attractiveness, cognitive development, etc. Some of the effects which will be mentioned briefly include anger, depression, attempts to control, intimidation, and death.

Literature Review

Gender and Jealousy

In order to establish how jealousy affects relationship in the contemporary society, it is important to look first at gender and jealousy. Remarkably, the level of jealousy among the two genders, i.e. male and female play a vital role in elucidating on the place of jealousy in relationship and the problems which were encountered as a result (Sabini & Silver, 2005). To begin with, it is important to understand that there are numerous researches which have been carried out in the past and most of them came to a conclusion that both men and women were jealousy of one another in relationships. In other words, the cases of jealousy were found in both men and women.

However, as it was observed by Edlund & Sagarin (2009), there were different approaches, two to be specific which have been used in the past to test sex differences in jealousy but most of them produced inconsistent results (p.67). Therefore, using these approaches, it was found out that both genders had jealousy in relationships. Furthermore, tests were carried to determine factors which caused distress between both genders. It was realized that both men and women tend to have strong jealous reactions to sexual and emotional infidelity because both forms of infidelity were costly and they were likely to have been highly correlated with one another throughout evolutionary history (p.67). Penke & Asendorpf (2008) agrees with Edlund and Sagarin that the two evolutionary psychological hypotheses that men react more jealous than women to sexual infidelity and women react more jealous than men to emotional infidelity were inconsistent (p.3).

Physical Attractiveness and Self Esteem

Apart from examining gender and jealousy in general, Brewer & Riley (2009) studied the relationship between height and jealousy among men (p.477). This approach to examining jealousy in relationship allowed these researchers to introduce other factors such as physical appearance, apart from height. Notably, height indicated handsomeness and health among men and as a result, tall had a higher affinity to women as compared to short men (p.477). Specifically, tall men are less jealous than short men when faced with the prospect of a physically attractive and dominant rival (p.479). This was coupled by the fact that self esteem played a vital role in elevating the impact of jealousy on a particular relationship. Notably, DeSteno, Valdesolo & Bartlett (2006) argues that threats on self esteem could easily accrue to aggression in any particular relationship since is raised the jealousy levels (p.629). In other words, physical attractiveness and self esteem were vital components which determine up to a certain level jealousy that was experienced in a particular relationship.

On the other hand, women who were fairly attractive also reported low levels of jealousy in their relationships. Essentially, these women were found to possess a high potential of attraction which resulted in low levels of threats. As a result, there was a low level of jealousy. Importantly, just as height played an important role in revealing the jealousy levels among men, height also played a part in revealing the jealousy levels among women. In reference to Buunk et al. (2008), male height was found to be negatively correlated with self-reported global jealousy, whereas female height was curvilinearly related to jealousy, with average-height women reporting the lowest levels of jealousy (p.133). In consistent with this, jealousy in relationship was partly determined by the height of both the man and woman who were involved. This was particularly so since it was believed that height served as an outward sign of good genes and as a result, this raised the level of attractiveness (p.133).

The relationship of a child and a parent

Researchers and Scholar have also been particularly concerned with the relationship between the parent and the child and how this impacts the child’s relationships in future. Research has demonstrated that experiences in the early familial environment contribute to romantic relationship functioning, such that individuals who grow up in families characterized by nurturing parenting have higher quality romantic relationships as adults than do individuals who grow up with parents characterized as distant or cold (Rauer & Volling, 2007, p.495). In consistent with this, the parent’s treatment of one as a child determined the way the child grew up and how he or she developed perception towards other people and relationship. Remarkably, it was observed that one of the consequences of unfair treatment of the child was jealousy, which affected his or her relationship later on in life (p.498). The approach which is used by Rauer and Volling focuses on young adult and they explore concrete issues which affected young adults and their relationships with others. Similarly, these authors relate jealousy and self-esteem and argue that the two are inversely related.

Impact of Jealousy on Relationships

There are a lot of impacts which have been identified as a result of jealousy. To begin with, jealousy among individuals affected the overall relating process in any particular relationship as a result of the fact that the person(s) who was affected had unstable emotional balance. As a result, such person(s) was unable to control his/her emotional dimension leading to anger, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, etc. Fleischmann et al. (2005) argues that Jealousy is a common source of relational dissatisfaction, relational conflict, break-up, aggression and violence (p.50). In connection to this, jealousy served a destructive purpose rather than building in any particular relationship.

Cognitive Therapy

There are different solutions which have been proposed towards solving or rather easing the impact of jealousy on relationships in the contemporary society. However, the use of a cognitive approach has been perceived as one of the most effective in dealing with jealousy in relationships. According to (Leahy & Tirch, 2008, p.), cognitive-behavioral approaches to jealousy have focused on correcting or modifying dysfunctional interpretations or assumptions that give rise to jealousy (p.19). Therefore, these researchers propose an integrative cognitive-behavioral model as a way of treating jealousy. Therefore, they propose that a systematic approach must be followed to examine or rather identify the problem and then work towards getting the victim out of the jealousy trap. Notably, the integrative approach recognizes that thoughts, emotions, behaviors and relationships are all part of a single system and that interventions at all points can maximize therapeutic effectiveness (p.30).

Conclusion

Whereas jealousy is one of the most threatening factors towards a cohesive or rather mutual existence of relationships in the society, it is among the factors which have been studied or researched on the least. In this connection, this research summary examined jealousy in relationship and came up with the fowling conclusions. To begin with, gender, i.e. male and female played a vital part in controlling the level of jealousy among both men and women who were in a relationship (Easton, Schipper & Shackelford, 2007). Remarkably, gender and jealousy cannot be separated. Furthermore, the height and attractiveness of those who were involved also, either heightened or reduced the level of jealousy in such relationships. Speaking generally, there are various issues which contributed to the overall rise or fall in the level of jealousy among people in relationships. These are the physical attributes, emotional attributes such as perception of self or rather self-esteem, and childhood experience.

There are various questions which were not answered adequately by literature which was reviewed in this summary research. To begin with, the jealousy as it pertains to gay relationship was mentioned briefly but not critically analyzed to come up with firm conclusions. Moreover, whereas jealousy had negative effects on relationships, the literature failed to take note of the fact that there were positive attributes of jealousy which could assist in strengthening relationships. Similarly, the question of whether jealousy and human development has not been touched. Therefore, further research on gay relationships, jealousy and human development, and the positive effects of jealousy would contribute a lot towards understanding jealousy in relationships.