What’s love got to do with jealousy?
Romantic love and jealousy seem antagonistic, but the expression of both emotions have evolutionary functions that can go in the same direction of maintaining a relationship. Considering natural selection designed adaptations to solve the problems surrounding reproduction, then love and romantic jea...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-09-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1249556/full |
| _version_ | 1827804887863263232 |
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| author | Ana Maria Fernandez Maria Teresa Barbato Belen Cordero Yvone Acevedo |
| author_facet | Ana Maria Fernandez Maria Teresa Barbato Belen Cordero Yvone Acevedo |
| author_sort | Ana Maria Fernandez |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Romantic love and jealousy seem antagonistic, but the expression of both emotions have evolutionary functions that can go in the same direction of maintaining a relationship. Considering natural selection designed adaptations to solve the problems surrounding reproduction, then love and romantic jealousy are emotions aimed at staying cooperative for a period of time, where love solves the adaptive challenges of promoting pair bonding, cooperation, and protecting offspring; and jealousy is triggered by a threat or the loss of a valuable cooperative relationship, either on behalf of descendants in need of resources, or a close romantic bond. Consequently, understanding love and romantic jealousy points in the same adaptive functional domain of protecting a romantic pair bond. Specifically, love can be comprehended in two different ways and in regard to jealousy. First, conceiving love as the attachment to significant others one develops throughout lifetime, and secondly, it contemplates affective dependence. Results from a sample of single and committed individuals (n = 332) show the predicted positive correlation between attachment and jealousy as stable traits, consistent with previous literature. In addition, there is a non-significant and low correlation, respectively, between attachment and love as a measure of dependence. Furthermore, in the single participants group, jealousy was associated with love. The discussion emphasizes the need for expanding a functional account of love and jealousy as complementary emotions of our human affective endowment. Finally, it would be informative to study attachment as a relational trait and love as a specific affection for a romantic partner that could be manipulated to elucidate the functional design of jealousy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T21:16:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-52643b8bcf414a719cb9b2a268277328 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T21:16:49Z |
| publishDate | 2023-09-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-52643b8bcf414a719cb9b2a2682773282023-09-28T16:15:01ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782023-09-011410.3389/fpsyg.2023.12495561249556What’s love got to do with jealousy?Ana Maria FernandezMaria Teresa BarbatoBelen CorderoYvone AcevedoRomantic love and jealousy seem antagonistic, but the expression of both emotions have evolutionary functions that can go in the same direction of maintaining a relationship. Considering natural selection designed adaptations to solve the problems surrounding reproduction, then love and romantic jealousy are emotions aimed at staying cooperative for a period of time, where love solves the adaptive challenges of promoting pair bonding, cooperation, and protecting offspring; and jealousy is triggered by a threat or the loss of a valuable cooperative relationship, either on behalf of descendants in need of resources, or a close romantic bond. Consequently, understanding love and romantic jealousy points in the same adaptive functional domain of protecting a romantic pair bond. Specifically, love can be comprehended in two different ways and in regard to jealousy. First, conceiving love as the attachment to significant others one develops throughout lifetime, and secondly, it contemplates affective dependence. Results from a sample of single and committed individuals (n = 332) show the predicted positive correlation between attachment and jealousy as stable traits, consistent with previous literature. In addition, there is a non-significant and low correlation, respectively, between attachment and love as a measure of dependence. Furthermore, in the single participants group, jealousy was associated with love. The discussion emphasizes the need for expanding a functional account of love and jealousy as complementary emotions of our human affective endowment. Finally, it would be informative to study attachment as a relational trait and love as a specific affection for a romantic partner that could be manipulated to elucidate the functional design of jealousy.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1249556/fullaffectpair bondsevolutionattachmentmating |
| spellingShingle | Ana Maria Fernandez Maria Teresa Barbato Belen Cordero Yvone Acevedo What’s love got to do with jealousy? Frontiers in Psychology affect pair bonds evolution attachment mating |
| title | What’s love got to do with jealousy? |
| title_full | What’s love got to do with jealousy? |
| title_fullStr | What’s love got to do with jealousy? |
| title_full_unstemmed | What’s love got to do with jealousy? |
| title_short | What’s love got to do with jealousy? |
| title_sort | what s love got to do with jealousy |
| topic | affect pair bonds evolution attachment mating |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1249556/full |
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