Young people are more likely to feel jealous than any other age group, says study

Eight out of 10 people under 30 surveyed said they had felt jealous in the past year - compared to seven out of 10 over-50s

Young people were more likely to feel an attack of the green eyed monster for a variety of reasons from love to career success (REX Features)

Young people are more prone to jealousy than any other age group, a new study has suggested.

According to research by the University of California, San Diego, 80 per cent of people aged under 30 surveyed had felt an attack of the green-eyed monster in the past year - compared with just 69 per cent of people over 50.

The paper, published in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology, found young people felt jealous for a variety of reasons but tend to be jealous of people their own age and gender.

Co-author of the study Professor Christine Harris said: "Envy can be a powerful emotion, Christian tradition even has it identified as one of the seven deadly sins.

"We wanted to investigate envy not only because it is subjectively experienced as negative but also because it has been suggested as motivation for a whole host of events - from fairy-tale murder to, in modern times, the force behind the Occupy Wall Street movement."

Professor Harris said it was "surprising" how often men envied other men, and how many women envied other women.

She said: "Even in domains like financial and occupational success, where you can imagine that a woman might envy a man his better pay or status, that wasn't usually the case."

The report also found that what a person feels envy about changes with age, with young people more likely to feel jealous of another person’s looks and romance, career or academic success.

Professor Harris said they were unsure why older people felt less envy than younger people but it seemed "the hold envy has on people diminishes with time".

"My guess is that it's good news about ageing", she added.