A newly published study found that men feel threatened when their girlfriends or wives succeed, Yahoo! News reported.
Whether it's academically or socially, researchers found men suffer from lower self-esteem levels when their partner succeeded more than when they failed. However, they found women's self-esteem to be unaffected by their partner's success.
"It makes sense that a man might feel threatened if his girlfriend outperforms him in something they're doing together, such as trying to lose weight," said study leader Kate Ratliff of the University of Florida. "But this research found evidence that men automatically interpret a partner's success as their own failure, even when they're not in direct competition."
Ratliff and her fellow researcher Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virgina conducted five experiments which analyzed how self-esteem might be affected by the success or failure of a romantic partner among heterosexual American and Dutch couples.
One study was done with 32 undergraduate couples at the University of Virginia, where each individual was given a social intelligence "test." After reading different scenarios describing a problem at work or home, each participant had to choose between several pieces of advice to deal with the issue. Each person taking the "test" was told there was a right answer and that their score would determine their "problem-solving and social intelligence."
Although researchers did not grade the tests or hand out scores, they were told their partner scored in either the top or bottom 12 percent of all university students.
Ratliff and Oishi said that when participants heard their partners scores, it did not explicity affect their self-esteem level or show in a questionnaire taken afterwards.
However, they did say a drop in self-esteem was reported in the Implicit Association Test -- a subconscious test that demonstrated men were more likely to associate themselves with words such as "bad" or "dreadful" after hearing their partner scored in the top 12 percent.
Compared to the men who thought their partners scored in the bottom 12 percent, men who were told their partner ranked in the top 12 displayed implicitly lower self-esteem.
The researchers offered a few possible reasons behind their findings and mentioned traditional gender roles in society.
"There is an idea that women are allowed to bask in the reflected glory of her male partner and to be the 'woman behind the successful man,' but the reverse is not true for men," the researchers wrote.
The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
