《英语流行话题阅读:语境识词3500》Unit42:透视妒嫉心理

　　Unit 42
Understanding Jealousy¹
Most of us have experienced Shakespeare's "green-eyed monster" -- jealousy. It is a terrible obsession². Often in a crisis we'd like to kill the person who tries to take our lover away. It is said that 20% to 35% of all murders involve a jealous lover. Just as falling in love seems "natural" and unlearned, so does jealousy. It just comes over us when someone or something (like work, TV, or sports) threatens our love relationship.
There are four stages of jealousy:
Suspecting the threat: If you are insecure about a love relationship and very dependent on your lover, you are likely to be jealous. You may see "signs" of disaster when none are there. In reality, 45% of the people in the Psychology³ Today survey had cheated on a partner while pretending to be faithful. If the threat to our relationship -- the competitor -- is attractive, intelligent, successful, etc., we will be more threatened and more disturbed.
Assessing the threat: We may spy on our lover and the competitor; we probably lie awake nights worrying about the situation and reviewing the signs, "Did she come on to him?" "I wonder if he has talked to her?" "Does he love her?" "Wonder if everybody but me knows about it?"... Women are concerned about their partner becoming attracted to other women by sex, intelligence, and other attractions, and dissatisfaction with the current relationship. Men are more concerned about protecting their egos⁵ if they are "beaten out" by another man; they worry about their partner having sex with someone else (but they'd probably blame the partner if that did happen). It is in this deep worry and spying stage that we go crazy.
Emotional reactions: If we decide there is a threat to our love, we can have a very wide range of responses: clinging dependency, anger at the competitor or the partner, morbid⁶ curiosity, self-criticism, and depression with suicidal thoughts, hurt and resentment⁷ of the partner's lack of devotion, social embarrassment⁸, selfish -- sometimes realistic -- concerns ("I'd better take the money out of the bank"), urge to "get back at" the partner, fear of losing companionship, loneliness, regrets at giving up all the future plans, etc.
Coping response: There are two basic choices -- trying to save the threatened relationship or trying to protect your sagging⁹ ego⁴. Men are more likely to become competitive or angry, often including getting drunk. Women more often become weak and depressed¹⁰. After an affair, men want sexual details and women want to know how serious the relationship is.

1 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

2 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 ego   

n.自我，自己，自尊

参考例句：

• He is absolute ego in all thing.在所有的事情上他都绝对自我。
• She has been on an ego trip since she sang on television.她上电视台唱过歌之后就一直自吹自擂。

5 egos   

自我，自尊，自负( ego的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their egos are so easily bruised. 他们的自尊心很容易受到伤害。
• The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. 这种信仰是下等人幼稚的自私意识中产生的。

6 morbid   

adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的

参考例句：

• Some people have a morbid fascination with crime.一些人对犯罪有一种病态的痴迷。
• It's morbid to dwell on cemeteries and such like.不厌其烦地谈论墓地以及诸如此类的事是一种病态。

7 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。

8 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

9 sagging   

下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is continuously sagging. 敌军的士气不断低落。
• We are sagging south. 我们的船正离开航线向南漂流。

10 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。