Facebook Jealousy Higher Among Clever Students, Finds Study

Clever? Then You're Prone To 'Facebook Jealousy'
More intelligent people are more likely to experience
More intelligent people are more likely to experience
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The more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to be prone to "Facebook jealousy", finds new research.

The study was carried out amongst undergraduate participants who were asked to envision hypothetical scenarios such as discovering a message in a partners mailbox asking the deliberately ambiguous question: "What are you up to later?"

A study found that students with a higher grade point average (GPA) were more inclined to be jealous in these situations.

The findings are prelimenary but researcher Denise Friedman, an associate professor of psychology at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, who carried out the study, said: "It may be that people with high GPAs tend to have a personality type that makes them more prone to jealousy.

"Students with higher GPAs are often more conscientious, show greater self-control and tend to be perfectionists.

"The perceived infidelity likely upsets their attempts at perfection across the board."

Past studies have found that women are more jealous than men on Facebook, men were more jealous if the message had an emoticon, such as a winking face, as opposed to no emoticon.

"Evolutionary work suggests men are more jealous of sexual infidelity, while women are more jealous of emotional infidelity," Friedmen added.

"The winking emoticon was most likely perceived as flirtatious, perhaps even sexually suggestive, which may explain why men were more jealous in this condition."

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