Are You Envious or Jealous?

Many women are said to be jealous of the handbag or the sleek lines of a good friend. But what in fact is jealousy?


According to psychological research being envious is a feeling of envy, desire toward an object or a person. When  you deeply admire your friend's new bag and long for it are you envious. Envy is the emotion when one wants something that someone or something else has.

Jealousy comes up only when several people are involved. For example you can be jealous of the attention your brother or sister get from your parents, or the special bond between your other friends. Jealousy is the emotion when you fear something or someone might be taken away from you. Another example is "It makes me jealous when she/he calls my partner up in the middle of the night".
From the same psychological study they also found that actually only envy can be very damaging to our self-confidence. That's why we feel inferior, unhappy and embarrassed when we feel envy. On the other hand, with jealousy the primary feeling is anger.