Jealousy in Relation to Envy

This paper critically assesses the widespread claim that jealousy is a response to infidelity. According to this claim, herewith called the entitlement theory (ET), jealousy is only an appropriate response to a relationship between a loved one and a rival if, by entertaining this relationship, the loved one does not treat the jealous person the way she is entitled to be treated. I reconstruct different versions of ET, each of them providing a different answer to the question why we should assume that jealousy is a response to infidelity. I show that even the most plausible versions enjoy less argumentative support than it seems at first sight. The positive aim of this paper is to present a more inclusive account of jealousy as an alternative to ET. According to this account, jealousy serves to disturb the rival relationship and to (regain n the attention and affection of the loved person. Jealousy so understood is not only an appropriate response to infidelity but has wider appropriateness conditions. However, it plays a role in the negotiation of norms concerning exclusivity in personal relationships. The inclusive account does justice to the continuity and commonalities between adult and infant protest against rival relationships.

The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 1990

Psihologijske teme

Envy is a word signifying an emotion that arises from social comparison and signals that one is outperformed by another person, or group of people, which makes one feel painful inferiority. It originates from the Latin "invidere" which means to "gaze maliciously". Yet, this emotion does not want to be communicated. It is hard to identify or admit it, partly because of a range of other negative emotions, such as hostility, resentment and rejection that accompany envious feelings. Envy may also trigger admiration that motivates one to "do better". However, subjective, historical and philosophical accounts overwhelmingly speak of its negative consequences. Not surprisingly, envy is regarded as a social taboo. Even the traditional scientific community considers envy as a "second class" emotion. It is said that envy does not meet the criteria for basic emotions. Only recently, with the paradigmatic shift in modern evolutionary psychology, a new fra...

Motivation and Emotion, 1996

Envy and jealousy may differ in kind or only by degree. In a study of emotion episodes recalled by 291 subjects, two forms of taxometric analysis were used to test between categorical and dimensional models of the two emotions. The two emotions yielded strong convergent evidence of discreteness, and commonly cooccurred. However, although subjects rated their episode to contain similar levels of “envy” and “jealousy,” both terms were equally correlated with the presence of envy features and neither term was correlated substantially with the presence of jealousy features. Implications ar drawn for the study of categorical distinctions between emotions, and for the relation between emotions and emotion terms.

International Studies in Philosophy, 1983

British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1991

This paper provides a critical discussion of Klein's theory of envy as primary, an innate aspect of the destructive forces. The author argues that envy is the outcome of a defective mother/ infant fit in which the infant's need for illusory omnipotence is not met, resulting in a sense of lack of sufficient internal resources to manage existence as a separate individual (i.e. feelings of worthlessness and helplessness). Envy arises from this sense of lack through the compensatory fantasy of an all-providing other who possesses the qualities required to fill the gap. If the gap is felt to be intolerable, destructive spoiling ensues as an attempt to obliterate it. This aspect of envy is therefore seen as ultimately defensive rather than, as in Klein's view, a primary impulse against which defences are instituted.

Psychotherapy and Politics International, 2011

In psychoanalysis the concept of envy describes a specific defence within an object relational structure that denies the subjectivity, need and entitlement of the other and is the antithesis of gratitude and satisfaction. Yet how far is envy both a representation of a psychological structure which is pathological and a culturally generated phenomenon? Should we not take into account the forces that amplify envy when considering the pathology of our 'envious' clients? With reference to social and political dynamics and a clinical vignette, this paper will consider whether envy can be as much a social disease as a psychopathology that requires psychotherapeutic treatment. It will look at three main areas. What are the conditions in our society that increase envious reactions? What are the economic and social consequences of envy, both negative and positive, and what of our own envy in relation to our colleagues and clients?

I argue that envy is not so much an unpleasant complex emotion or feeling but rather a moral-psychologically highly interesting attitude and strategy, which consists in denying another person the acknowledgment she actually deserves for certain reasons. I will analyze this strategy in more detail by referring to Immanuel Kant's concept of self-love and rationalizing. By focusing on the cognitive and propositional structure of envy, I reveal and further analyze its implicit propositional structure. I argue that envy is a kind of moral self-deception. Finally, I argue that envy understood in this way is characterized by a paradox, which consists in the fact that we never consciously and willingly envy another person so that the speech act "I envy you" entails a performative contradiction.

European Journal of Personality, 2008

Penke and Asendorpf (European Journal Of Personality, vol 21, this issue) argue compellingly that research on jealousy would benefit from more direct investigation of cognitive processes, and report on research providing mixed evidence for sex differences in jealousy. We identify three limitations to the empirical approach utilised by Penke and Asendorpf, and highlight novel conceptual and methodological approaches for directly examining the basic cognitive mechanisms associated with jealousy and intrasexual rivalry. Investigating the basic cognition of intrasexual rivalry will help expand the scope of jealousy-related research.

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2003

Taking as its starting point Klein's concepts of 1957, this paper stresses certain characteristics of envy that have not yet been taken into account in psychoanalysis. Klein described the conflict between envy and gratitude as inherent in the human being; she suggested an interesting link between envy and admiration, but never developed this idea in her theory. The hypothesis that we put forward in this paper is the existence of a particular intolerance-related to envy-of one's own capacity to recognise the valuable aspects of the object. This situation leads to the paradox that the same faculty that allows the patient to appreciate the good qualities of the object is at the same time the source of unbearable pain. The capacity to recognise the good aspects of the object-whether they are perceived or attributed by projective identification-cannot be accepted as a valuable aspect of the self and is taken as a proof of the self 's unworthiness. We think that the description of this intolerance towards admirative appreciation introduces a change in the understanding of idealization simply as a defence against envy and enriches the conflict expressed in the immediacy of the transference - countertransference.