The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex (12 page)

The nondominant follower was described this way: “You find out
that your girlfriend is flirting with Hans, the man in the photo. Hans is a
student in Groningen and is about the same age as you. Hans attends classes
regularly and is one of the 600 members of activities club DLP. Hans does not
always know what he wants and he often fails to understand what is going on in
other people’s minds. Hans often waits for others to take the initiative and is
rather compliant. At parties he usually stays in the background.”

After viewing the photos and reading the personality
descriptions, participants rated how jealous they felt on a 5-point scale ranging
from 1 (
not at all jealous
) to 5 (
very jealous
). They also
rated how suspicious, betrayed, worried, distrustful, rejected, hurt, anxious,
angry, threatened, sad, and upset they felt after they had perused the scenario
and photograph of the rival.

The physical attractiveness of the rival did not affect men’s
feelings of jealousy. The dominance of the rival, however, had a strong impact.
Dominant rivals evoked more jealousy among men than nondominant rivals. This
effect proved especially strong in the low attractiveness version, where the
dominant rival evoked jealousy scores averaging 3.5, whereas the nondominant
rival evoked jealousy scores of only 2.3.

For women, the results were reversed. The dominance of the rival
had absolutely no effect on women’s jealousy, but the physical attractiveness
of the rival had a huge impact. The attractive female rival evoked jealousy
ratings of 3.5, regardless of the rival’s dominance. In contrast, the
unattractive female rival evoked jealousy ratings of only 2.6, again regardless
of the rival’s dominance.

This study provided evidence that jealousy is especially keyed
to the desires of the opposite sex. Women are primarily threatened by rivals
who embody what men want. Men are primarily threatened by rivals who have what
women want.

The Dutch study represents the first to document that the
psychological design of jealousy about rivals depends on specific
characteristics. How general are these results across cultures? To answer this
question, my colleagues Jae Choe, Pieternel Dijkstra, Bram Buunk, and Todd
Shackelford explored jealousy within the context of a larger set of rival
characteristics. The American participants were 208 individuals, 106 women and
102 men, drawn from a large midwestern university. The Korean participants were
174 individuals, 83 women and 91 men, drawn from a large university located in
Seoul. The Dutch participants were 182 women and 162 men from Groningen.

Each person completed a questionnaire containing background
information. Then they were instructed: Please think of a serious or committed
romantic relationship that you have had in the past, that you currently have,
or that you would like to have. Imagine that you discover that the person with
whom you’ve been seriously involved became seriously interested in a long-term
relationship with someone else. What would upset or distress you more? Please
rank order the following items on the degree to which they would upset you.
Give a 1 to
the most upsetting,
a 2 to the
second most upsetting,
a 3 to
the third most upsetting
. . . all the way down to 11 for
the
least upsetting
.

You found out that the person that your partner became
interested in:

The Korean, American, and Dutch studies supported our theory of
jealousy about rivals. Men in all three cultures showed greater distress than
women over rivals who had better financial prospects, better future job
prospects, and greater physical strength.

I witnessed this finding firsthand when I interviewed a married
couple on camera for a TV documentary based on my research on jealousy. They
had no previous knowledge about my research, but illustrated the theory
beautifully. The couple, in their late 20s, described their marriage as solid
and happy. They had just had their first child. Their colleagues and friends
alike described them as exceptionally “nice people.” They were as well matched
on personality, temperament, and looks as any couple I’d ever interviewed. When
I asked the husband whether he ever felt that his wife might be lured away by
other man, he replied: “Well, we have a great relationship, and I feel like I
can give her nearly everything she needs and wants. I make her laugh, I’m sweet
to her, and I carry at least half of the child-care duties. There is only one
thing that I feel threatened by—another man who can provide for her better than
I can. I don’t have a high salary. I can give her everything else she needs
except that. I don’t think it will ever happen, but it’s the one area where I
feel vulnerable.”

Women in all three cultures showed greater distress than did men
over rivals who had more attractive faces and more attractive bodies. One
American woman, age 24, described her experience with jealousy: “I’ve been with
my boyfriend for four years, but when we had been seeing each other for only
six months, some girl came onto him at a party, and she was
very pretty
. They became friends. I became jealous of their friendship, but only after he
said that he found her very physically attractive, and he told me that she was
very interested in him as well—she wanted him for herself.”

Another American woman, age 23, described her feelings of
jealousy: “My boyfriend had been unfaithful in the past and I really felt as if
he couldn’t be trusted around anyone of the opposite sex. I became extremely
jealous when my boyfriend was talking to another woman. She was pretty, and she
made me feel like I was the ugliest girl in the world! I went up to them and
stood right between them and asked ‘who is this?’ and he politely introduced
us. I was so rude to her that she left.”

The rival’s sexiness also provokes a woman’s jealousy. A woman
in her mid-30s described this episode: “Several years ago, my best friend, who
is very sexy, sat on my husband’s lap just for fun, and I felt jealous and
threatened for the first time in our relationship. It was her playful attitude,
laughter, and her innate sex appeal that set me off—the fact that she waggled
her fanny in his face. My husband and I had a huge fight later that night.”

One of the most vivid demonstrations of the destruction caused
by jealous rivals comes not from a formal scientific study, but rather from a
journalist’s shocking exposé of jealousy in Jamaica. In the city of Kingston,
the nightlife swirls and DJs boom out songs about heart-wrenching suffering in
triangular relationships. The triangles typically center on a man, his
girlfriend (“matey”) and the woman who’s the mother of his children
(“babymother”). The songs pulse and grind, the torrid beat lightened by playful
lyrics that convey stories of rivalry and betrayal.

Money is scarce, but what money is available often gets funneled
into sharp clothes in a plumage-like competition for desirable mates. The
successfully partnered cannot rest easy. Both sexes fear being usurped by
rivals. The qualities of dangerous rivals are predictably different for men and
women: “the men fear being left for a better economic prospect and the women
expect to be usurped by the young, up-and-coming mateys.” The women look for
men of means, a man with “sweets,” to escape the struggle for survival and to
secure a steady stream of income for their children. Men use their resources to
lure young women. Cars and cellular phones signal status, so a man might say,
“Come baby love. You want to come in my car? You want to talk on my cellular
phone?”

Since most men lack resources, women compete fiercely for those
who have them. Sandy, age 19, was among the most successful competitors when
she entered the nightlife scene. She used to be a “hot girl.” She dressed in
the most fashionable style, name-brand clothes mailed to her from sisters in
New York. And she had her own money. The most wealthy don of the area, a flashy
dresser named Lucky, noticed her. He already had five babymothers, but Sandy
was so young and hot that Lucky could not resist. He bought Sandy fine gifts
and he swept her away. She fell in love and became pregnant. But the
relationship carried a danger Sandy did not anticipate.

While shopping on a busy street one afternoon, someone tapped
Sandy on the shoulder. When she turned, she was confronted with one of Lucky’s
babymothers, holding in her hand a bucket of liquid. Within seconds, Sandy’s
face and body were splashed with a volatile mixture of acid and gunpowder.
Sandy screamed. The flesh on her face melted beneath the burning acid, her face
permanently disfigured by her jealous rival.

Sandy spent a year in the hospital getting skin grafts, and the
next two years recovering. Today she’s stoic about the events: “Lucky’s
baby-mother had a grudge feeling. I was the hottest girl around here. I had
money, I was studying, I had body suits, shorts, Fila boots, Guess shoes . . .
pure name-brand. And I was pregnant—maybe that’s why she did it. If a woman
hears a man checking another girl, she comes to burn you up with acid. Acid
you, to spoil your beauty.”

Kingston, Jamaica, is not alone in the destruction caused by
jealous rivalry. In Samoa, a culture that Margaret Mead once claimed was free
of jealousy, wives sometimes seek out women who had sex with their husbands and
bite them on the nose to reduce their attractiveness. Worldwide, the
co-evolutionary spiral continues. Women and men compete to embody what the other
sex desires. The jealousy of each sex, in turn, is keyed to those desires.
Although the acid splashing in Kingston and the nose biting in Samoa are
extreme, the jealous passions they reflect burn brightly within all of us.

The Othello Syndrome

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy.

It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;

But O! what damned minutes tells he o’er

Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves!

—Shakespeare,
Othello

L
ARRY AND HIS WIFE,
S
USAN
,
had been happily married for three years. He always wore striped ties to work.
For some inexplicable reason, she fell into the routine of noticing the
direction of the stripe before he left for work. One day, when Larry returned
from work, she realized that his tie had been retied at some point during the
day.

A man named Paul purchased a trendy new overcoat with a hood.
His wife had a sudden vision, which she described as an “immediate instinct,”
that “he got it bad for a very young girl.”

Mark and his wife enjoyed reading astrology charts together. One
day, she saw him read a new sign, at which point he smiled, but said nothing.
She suspected that he had taken on a lover.

Victor suddenly became a Beethoven fanatic, and his wife
immediately suspected that he was having an affair with a music lover.

One Christmas Eve, a man looked across the street and thought
that he observed the neighbor’s window lights flashing in synchrony with the
lights of the Christmas tree in his own house. He concluded with utter
certainty that his wife was having an affair with the neighbor. When brought to
counseling by his wife, the man was declared to be “delusional” and to suffer
from pathological jealousy.

As different as these cases are from each other, they all share
three things. First, in each case, the people who suspected their spouse of
infidelity had been referred to a psychiatrist for help. Second, in each case,
the patient had been diagnosed as being pathologically jealous, with labels
attached such as the Othello syndrome or conjugal paranoia. Third, in each
case, the jealous person turned out to be correct! The wife of the man who
noticed the Christmas tree lights, for example, turned out to be having a torrid
affair with the neighbor. In each case, the persons plagued by the Othello
syndrome had picked up on clues, many of which they could not even articulate,
processed those clues in some way, and arrived at a correct conclusion. How can
we understand the paradox of individuals being diagnosed as pathologically
gripped by the Othello syndrome, yet being perfectly accurate in their
inferences about their partner’s infidelity? This chapter explores the Othello
syndrome and examines whether it represents a true psychological disturbance or
ancient wisdom we all possess.

Not all people diagnosed with delusional jealousy accurately
appraise reality. Clearly some people are truly delusional, like the
35-year-old wife who was diagnosed as having pathological jealousy. Her case
was sufficiently interesting to make it into a clinical textbook: “after 13
years of marriage her relationship with her husband had cooled and the couple
slept in separate rooms. Following the discovery of a letter that in a
circumstantial way suggested that her husband might be having an affair, she
became convinced that another woman was entering the house and having sex with
her husband while she was asleep. In order to check on him she insisted on
tying a piece of cotton around his penis before going to bed. Her bizarre
behavior persisted and was tolerated by her husband for nearly a year. He only
sought medical help [for her] when her delusional beliefs extended and she
claimed that her husband could not only put thoughts into her head but also
exercise remote control over the movements of her body by using electromagnetic
waves.”