section_path: Friendship jealousy
section_name: Friendship jealousy
paragraph_text: Friendship jealousy
  
  Jealousy is an emotion that is often studied in the context of romantic and sexual relationships. However, individuals also feel jealous when it comes to potentially losing valued friendships. Friendship jealousy acts as an alert to the self that a close friends' other friends may be a threat to the self's relationship with that close friend which motivates the self to enact behaviors that prevent the close friend from further developing better relationships with their other friends. A recent multi-study paper found that friendship jealousy is activated by the potential loss of a friend by another person, is highly attuned to the feeling or thoughts of being replaced, and that the closer or more valued that friendship is, the more friendship jealousy someone will feel. Men and women also tend to express different levels of friendship jealousy depending on the person who is attempting to replace them in the friendship, such that women compared to men expressed more jealousy over the potential loss of a best-friend to another woman.