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Dining With An Ex Serves Up Jealousy Between Spouses

Danielle Tarasiuk |
October 18, 2012 | 1:21 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Moriza/Creative Commons
Moriza/Creative Commons
Dinner is never just dinner. 

A study released in July suggests that jealousy brews when romantic partners share a meal with an ex-partner. 

Scientists at Cornell University say that a meal with an ex causes more jealousy amongst romantic partners than almost any other casual situation, such as meeting for coffee. 

The jealousy, according to scientists, arises over the act of eating together. 

Researchers have discovered in the past that the act of sharing food is an important facet in not only courtship, but also that family meals have emotional and physiological advantages in the development of children.

In other words, sharing food is a mode of bonding and showing affection. 

"Given the tradition and fashion of food sharing among co-workers, family members and friends, our findings are notably consistent with the idea that eating together has importance beyond nutritional factors," said co-author Kevin Kniffin, an organizational behaviorist at Cornell. 

Kniffin and study co-writer Brian Wansink decided to test how food influences relationships.

They enlisted college students and asked them about hypothetical situations involving their boyfriend/girlfriend and an ex. The college students were then asked to measure their jealousy on a scale of 1 to 5.

The situations were as follow: "Recently, your (romantic partner) was contacted by his/her ex-(romantic partner) and she/he spent approximately one hour (1) corresponding via email, (2) talking on the phone, (3) meeting for late-morning coffee, (4) meeting for a late-morning meal (or Lunch), (5) meeting for late-afternoon coffee, and (6) meeting for a late-afternoon meal (or Dinner).”

What they found was that meals above all promote the highest level of jealousy, with coffee and phone calls getting the second highest amount of jealousy, and emails with the least amount of jealousy. 

"By applying a functional view of jealousy,” said Kniffin. “Our studies yield the inference that people think meals can be more than just meals." 

The researchers than took their experiment a step further. Being jealous is generally viewed as something negative and many people don’t like to admit that they are in fact jealous. So the scientists then asked the participating college students the same series of questions, only this time they asked how they thought their best friends would respond. 

Their suspicions were right. The amount of jealousy increased, though the ranking of events was the same. 

“It’s exactly what we thought we’d see,” Kniffin said. “They were playing down their own reactions.”

These results applied to both genders equally, which surprised the researchers.

Men are usually more jealous when women physically stray from the relationship, where as women are typically more jealous when men emotionally cheat. Furthermore, pointing to the fact that meals have both an emotional and physical effect. 

Kristie Stevens, 24, from Camas, Wash. admits she displays the researchers’ findings: “I'd like to say that I'm evolved enough to be good with it,” said Stevens, “But I'm prone to fits of petty jealousy and know that I don't even want my significant other hanging out with an ex when I'm present, let alone over coffee or meal when I'm not around. Coffee would be less offensive than a meal, but neither would be preferable.”

 

Email Danielle Tarasiuk here or follow her on Twitter. 



 

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