Well, not your boyfriend specifically. But probably most men. Yay?
You know how people say “Behind every great man is a great woman” and it’s like, ugh, barf? Unfortunately if we reversed it, it might have to be “Behind every great woman is a sad, jealous, man-baby.” A new study shows that men tend to have lower self-esteem and bruised egos when their female partners excel. So, that’s encouraging.
In a series of experiments conducted among 32 undergraduate couples, when men were told their partner had scored in the top 12 percent of all students on a test, the men tended to score lower on an Implicit Association Test for self-esteem. Note that the guys didn’t say they felt any worse after hearing of their partner’s success, but the Implicit Associate Test measures attitudes and feelings people may not want to report through word associations. Women didn’t suffer the same self-esteem dip when their guy succeeded. Come on, dudes. Don’t make us feel guilty about being smart, please.
