Jealousy – an EmotionEssay Preview: Jealousy – an EmotionReport this essayJealousy is an emotion marked by fear of losing something important and is a commonemotion that almost all individuals experience (DeSteno, Valdesolo and Bartlett, 2006). It issaid that often those who are anxious, individuals may be more prone to these feelings intheir relationships, thus experiencing negative outcomes.This paper will explore the effect of jealousy and anxiety, through review of a researchstudy Touch reduces romantic jealousy in the anxiously attached (Kim, Feeney &Jakubiak, 2017). Previously jealousy has been shown to be harmful to individuals and theirrelationships, thus the purpose of this study is to explore mechanisms to reduce jealousyin anxious individuals. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of touchvs. non touch in reducing negative expressions of jealousy for anxious individuals.In order to test this theory, 75 couples (69 heterosexual and 6 homosexual couples) agedbetween 18-35 who had been dating for at least 3 months were studied. The results weretested using G-Power 3.1, which used hierarchical multiple regression with three variables.Each couple, at random was designated to be the “target” of the jealous induction and the“partner” who would assist with the induction. The data was only collected from the target.To ensure authenticity, couples were told that they were being watched while ratingphotographs. Firstly, each pair completed a questionnaire with scales from 1 to 7, to whichthe anxiety sub scale was the primary focus. The sub scale measured the extent to whichan individual was worried about being rejected or unloved. After determining the anxietylevels, the researchers moved onto the jealousy inducing stage.As the study wanted to understand if touch vs. non touch was relevant, couples were splitinto two groups. If the couple were assigned to “touch”, the partner had to maintainphysical contact with the target whilst sitting together for the entire duration (ie, putting his/her hand on the targets leg). The partner orally rated each photo by two measures: (1)
Attractiveness of the person (2) If the partner would date the person in the image. Unlikethis group, non touch couples performed the same task however, the partner could nottouch and the target had to sit and watch their partner rate the photographs. The visualactivity measured jealousy by asking participants to rate the extent of which they feltthreatened. Self-esteem and positive feelings were also measured as these were expectedto be related to the experience of jealousy.In conclusion, there was a significant effect between anxiety producing jealous feelings,indicating that the more anxious targets experienced greater states of jealousy. Consistentwith prior research showing correlation between attachment and jealousy (Hazan andShaver, 1987), anxious participants reported more jealousy and lower self-esteem inresponse to induced jealousy laboratory situations. After examining the results, there wasa marginally significant negative relation between touch and positive feelings of low levels
Self-esteem did not change after the event, indicating that the target would experience more jealousy and lowered self-esteem.This means that, for all participants, both types of jealousy are associated with enhanced self-esteem, suggesting that a higher quality of life can be a major predictor for feelings of jealousy. It should be noted that even in the present study, the participants were also included in the experimental setup in order to provide a clear picture of the context and possible effect of jealousy on jealousy, specifically over the participants’ physical contact and emotional reactions. Furthermore, only one participant, Dr. Yoon Ji-Hee, was included in this study. In addition, the participation was conducted in the context of the general public under the supervision of a female university-affiliated health education center (FTSC-3D, Guangdong China) as an independent, non-experimental study. Thereafter, it will be of the public also’s interest to examine participants’ perceived pain during the test.