jealousy traits

“An anthropological look at for causes has led some experts to conclude that jealousy is biological – that it is instinctive behaviour, in other words. A more interesting approach might be to look at why some people are more jealous than others. In surveys, psychologists have discovered three personality characteristics that the very jealous have in common. The first is insecurity in relationships, stemming from low self-esteem. The jealous person does not see him – or herself as worthy of the love and attention of the other person, perhaps. Another characteristics of the jealous person is a greater than normal discrepancy between how that person is and how he or she would like to be. Looking at it another way, we could say this person was quite dissatisfied with him – or herself. The last characteristic is that they very jealous tend to put a lot of stock in worldly items such as wealth, fame, popularity, and physical attractiveness. These are, of course, important to most people but not to the same degree that they are to the very jealous. That we might call these personality traits causes of jealousy is possible only because those with the characteristics exhibit abnormal levels of what is a normal human emotion jealousy.”

(“ The heart of jealousy” by P.Salovey and J.Rodin. 1985)