Losing out to
others
Jealousy occurs
when we fear or experience a loss to others. Thus the famous jealous lover
who sees all other people of the same sex as potential rivals who will steal away the mate.
Envy and jealousy
Jealousy is slightly
different from envy as it involves a third party and is about loss. Envy is
always about potential gain.
Envy and jealousy
overlap in the scenario where another person is admired by everyone else
for possessing something. This gives you a 'double whammie' as it means they are both giving
someone else attention and also not giving you attention. You are envious of the attention that
they are getting and jealous because you see them 'stealing' that attention from you.
Turning loss
into hate
What is happening
here goes something like this:
- I have something or someone that is important
to me.
- Either (a) you take that away from me,
or (b) I imagine you taking that away from me.
- This makes you not only a thief, but a
thief of something to which I have emotional
attachment.
- You have hurt me deeply and I hate you
for this.
- If you are a friend, then this also involves
betrayal and I hate you even more.
Notice how we work
hard to justify to ourselves that feeling envious, an emotion we may
consider to be generally undesirable, is in fact ok for us to feel in these 'special' cases.
Sometimes we even retrospectively create
envy when something bad happens to other
people, so we can say 'they deserved it'. Again, this is all about justifying to ourselves that we
can feel bad about other people.
So what?
Beware of making
others jealous of you: the results can be hazardous. You can, however,
make people jealous of someone you wish to socially ostracize.
See also
Lazarus, R. and
Lazarus, B. (1994), Passion and Reason, Oxford University Press, New
York
