New research sheds light on male and female jealousy

January 21, 2015

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John Hopton for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

It may be hard for modern people who consider themselves intellectually sensitive to be told that we are emotionally no better than our early ancestors were. Surely we have been able to throw off the shackles of our evolutionary history and allow intelligence to triumphright?

Yeah, right.

Discoverys Trace Dominguez explains that jealousy is not only still prevalent (duh), but likely to be a hangover from the earliest days of humanity, when we lived solely in Africa.

It also has its roots in basically the same things it does today: suspicion, envy, mistrust, anxiety, and protective possession. Males guarded the social group and found food while females maintained social structure and raised offspring. Thus, male jealousy is the result of wanting to protect their own genetic interests by making sure females werent, ehem, mixing with other males while they were out trying to keep everyone alive.

Females, on the other hand, felt they and their offspring were betrayed if a male went off and shared resources with other females.

Pretty run-of-the-mill, you-knew-this-without-having-to-watch-a-video stuff.

But, as always, it isnt that simple

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New research sheds light on male and female jealousy