12.3: Jealousy, Secret Tests, and Gossip

Jealousy: The Green-Eyed Monster

Have you ever found yourself feeling jealous in a relationship? If you are like most people, you may have experienced both ends of jealousy, including feeling the emotion and finding yourself in a relationship with a jealous partner. Like other aspects of the dark side of communication, jealousy can have both positive and negative aspects. Jealousy can involve how people think, feel and respond to a perceived threat to a relationship. Although much reference is made to the “green-eyed monster” of jealousy in romantic relationships, it can also occur with friends, siblings, co-workers, and other people in our daily lives. Jealousy can be triggered by events, such as thinking your partner is flirting with someone attractive, but it can occur even in the absence of an actual rival. How we experience jealousy can be influenced by a variety of factors, including our personality, culture, attachment styles, and the unique characteristics of the relationship.

As with other aspects of the dark side of communication, jealousy can serve both negative and positive functions in relationships. Previous research has suggested that jealousy is related to six communication functions: preserving self-esteem, maintaining (protecting) the relationship, reducing uncertainty about both the primary and rival relationship, restoring balance in the relationship, and reassessing the relationship (Guerrero & Anderson, 1996). One potentially positive outcome of jealousy is that it can motivate people to take steps to improve their relationship (Henniger & Harris, 2014), such as investing time and effort in the relationship. Nonetheless, jealousy has been linked to relationship dissatisfaction, and increases in deception and relationship violence (Elphinston, et al., 2013; Guerrero, et al., 2005).

The green-eyed monster of jealousy can show itself in different forms, including cognitive, behavioral, or emotional jealousy (Guerrero & Andersen, 1998). Cognitive jealousy occurs when you experience negative thoughts about your partner’s behavior or a third party whom you believe is interfering in your relationship. For example, if someone starts texting your partner late at night, sending pictures and flirtatious messages, you may find yourself questioning the other person’s motives. Emotional jealousy refers to the emotions that are mixed in with your jealous experience, such as hurt, anger, and fear. Last, behavioral jealousy occurs when you take steps to monitor your partner, such as checking their phone, tracking their location, or trying to limit and/or control who they associate with.

What is the best way to manage feelings of jealousy when they arise? Think back through your own life and consider what you find to be the healthiest response to jealousy. Research has shown that using a “self-reliance” strategy may work the best (Salovey & Rodin, 1988). This approach calls for you to acknowledge your feelings while not letting the triggering event derail you from what you were doing. Furthermore, research suggests that following up the triggering event with calm discussions about jealous feelings (self-disclosure) and demonstrating increased affection toward partners lead to the most positive outcomes in these situations (Kennedy-Lightsey, 2018).

Secret Tests

In the classic teen movie Mean Girls, a tale of high school students jockeying for power, the four main characters engage in a four-way phone conversation designed to unknowingly undermine each other. This iconic scene showcases secret tests, a form of communication whereby individuals use a variety of direct and indirect strategies to learn information about each other and their relationship (Baxter & Wilmot, 1984). Secret tests, commonly referred to as game-playing, are often used when there are questions about the status of the relationship or when the relationship is going through changes. You are more likely to find secret tests when at least one person in the relationship has low self-esteem, talking about the relationship is considered taboo, or the relationship is in a state of decline.

Research has largely examined the use of secret tests in romantic relationships, but these strategies to reduce uncertainty can also be found in family, friend, and work relationships. Secret tests are included as a type of communication from the dark side because they can be manipulative, hurtful, and negative. There are several types of secret tests.

Gossip: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

The word gossip easily conjures up questionable images of “malicious rumors, put-downs, or the breathless propagation of a tabloid scoop” (Gottfried, 2019). As it turns out, gossip is not so sinister, but it’s a social skill that helps us connect by spreading information. Researchers essentially define gossip as, “talking about people who aren’t present” (Robbins & Karan, 2019).

According to David Ludden, professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College and author of The Psychology of Language: An Integrated Approach, gossiping can be positive or neutral as well as the expected negatives. In fact, Robbins and Karan (2019) found gossip to be quite mundane. Their observational study found that most gossip tended to be neutral rather than positive or negative. Neutral topics may include sharing updates about friends and family. Their study concluded that the average person gossips about 52 minutes a day. Of that, only about 15% was negative gossip, 9% was positive, and an overwhelming 75% was “boring” and neutral information. Additionally, while women tend to be stuck with the gossiping reputation, they found that men gossip just as much as women.

Dunbar (2004) believes that without gossip, society would not exist. She argues gossiping is a way to stay informed when our network/society becomes too big to manage and observe by ourselves. Furthermore, Roy Baumeister, Liqing Zhang, and Kathleen Vohs (2004) suggest that gossip is part of human socialization and cultural learning offering teachable situations of what society finds socially acceptable and not acceptable. For example, parents use the parable of “the boy who cried wolf” to tell their children about a neighbor who got in trouble for lying. As a result, we learn from a young age that lying is bad and learn that gossip serves “to keep people in check, morally speaking” (Robbins & Karan, 2019).

The usefulness of gossip doesn’t come without a dark side. Perhaps that is why we are quick to associate gossip with being something bad and reprehensible. When the information transmitted benefits no one and is intended to harm, that is gossip that should be avoided (Feinberg et al., 2012).