Short blokes are the jealous ones

According to European scientists short men are the most likely to be jealous. Researchers from Spain and Holland arrived at this conclusion after querying 549 Dutch and Spanish men and women.

They wanted to rate how jealous they felt and to identify the qualities that made them feel the most insecure.

The researchers from the universities of Groningen and Valencia discovered that men felt most nervous about attractive, rich and strong rivals, and taller men were the most relaxed.

The researchers found that women were most jealous of other women's beauty and charm and short and tall women appeared to be the most jealous.

However even though average-height women were the least jealous, they were the most likely to feel insecure by women who were of a different height.

Experts say jealousy is a form of fear linked to thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival who may or may not be a threat.

Jealousy is a more complex emotion than joy or anger and can last much longer without losing its original intensity.

The researchers say women with average height tended to be more fertile and healthy and, as a result, would be unlikely to be jealous of women with similar attributes but might instead be more jealous of taller women possessing masculine features such as physical dominance and social status.

Their report found that tall men may be less jealous because male height is associated with attractiveness, dominance and reproductive success such as in the animal kingdom where larger males were likely to win fights and obtain dominance and monopolize access to females.

They say in humans too height is one of the first features others notice and is therefore associated with status.

Previous research has suggested that taller men are likely to be more successful in their careers, earn more and have more attractive girlfriends and lead researcher Abraham Buunk says their research also showed that taller men enjoyed psychological advantages as well.

Psychologists say other factors play a role in jealousy which is about being afraid you are going to lose someone you love.

They say one of the key components is self-esteem and obviously height is related to this but then so are other characteristics such as baldness and also how strong the relationship is.

The research is published in the New Scientist.