Sep 27, 2020 09:00:00

'Jealousy' may strengthen friendship

It has been found that the presence of friends

has a significant impact on health and life, and it has been pointed out that trusting friends may reduce the risk of depression . An American research team reports that feelings of 'jealousy' towards beings that threaten friendships can help strengthen relationships with such friends.

Friendship jealousy: One tool for maintaining friendships in the face of third-party threats? --PsycNET
https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpspi0000311

Jealous feelings can act as a tool to strengthen friendships
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-jealous-tool-friendships.html

'Friends aren't just fun,' said Jaimie Arona Krems, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. 'Friends are a valuable resource, especially in the current epidemic of the new coronavirus infection.' He points out that friends can help in difficult situations, relieve loneliness, and stay healthy.

Research teams such as Arizona State University, Oklahoma State University, and Hamilton College have studied the effects of jealousy on friendship. 'We wanted to understand how to maintain friendship,' Krems said, saying that the experiment was conducted with the goal of finding ways to maintain friendship in the face of friendship-threatening situations. thing.

The research team conducted a total of 2918 subjects through simulations in hypothetical scenarios, questions about real-world events, and online experiments to influence the impact of 'jealousy on beings that threaten friendship' on friendship. I investigated.

Among the threats to friendships, 'moving a best friend' aroused sadness and anger rather than feelings of jealousy. On the other hand, when friendship was threatened by a relationship such as 'a person at the workplace of a close friend' or 'a lover of a close friend', the subject had a strong feeling of jealousy.

It seems that the strength of the jealousy of the threatening target was influenced by 'the possibility that a third party will replace you as a friend', and it seems that 'the best friend's lover' rather than 'the best friend's lover'. The research team pointed out that 'new friends' aroused stronger jealousy. 'What we are most jealous of is what we feel is'potentially replaced',' said Douglas Kenrick, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University.

The research team also reports that subjects who were jealous of something that threatened their friendship took action to counter the threat. The subject tried to maintain friendship, monopolize the time of the best friend, and try to manipulate the emotions of the best friend.

Keelah Williams, an assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College, points out that these behaviors are called 'friend guarding' and exist across cultures and species. Friend guarding is also found in non-human animals, 'female horses are known to be jealous of other female horses and bite or kick,' Williams said.

Friend guarding was not necessarily linked to the behavior of trying to control the best friend, but also to the behavior of trying to be a good friend for the other party. In other words, jealousy helped people strengthen their friendships. 'Jealousy can be a signal that friendship is being threatened,' said Athena Aktipis, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. This signal may have been left unattended by us. It helps us to take action to invest in friendship. '