Jealousy and the Meaning (or Nonmeaning) of Violence

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that jealousy is one of the major triggers of domestic violence. Three studies here examined North Americans' ambivalent feelings about jealousy and jealousy-related aggression. In Study 1, it was shown that participants believed both that jealousy can be a sign of insecurity and a sign of love. In Study 2, it was shown that this equating of jealousy with love can lead to the tacit acceptance of jealousy-related violence. In Study 3, it was shown that a relative acceptance of jealousy-related aggression extends to cases of emotional and sexual abuse by husbands against their wives. In both Studies 2 and 3, men who hit or abused their wives over a jealousy-related matter were judged to romantically love their wives as much as those who did not engage in abuse. Violence in the context of a non-jealousy-related argument was seen quite negatively, but it lost a great deal of its negativity in the jealousy case.