The Science of Playfulness: Or, How to Stop Being a Jealous Weirdo and Enjoy Your Relationship
Monday, February 10, 2025.
Once again, scientists have peered into the abyss of romantic entanglements and emerged clutching a surprising discovery: playfulness—the fine art of not taking oneself too seriously—might just be the glue that keeps couples together.
And not just together, but secure, happy, and slightly less likely to engage in 3 a.m. phone snooping missions.
A new study in Scientific Reports investigated how different flavors of adult playfulness relate to romantic attachment styles and good old-fashioned jealousy.
The researchers found that certain types of playfulness lead to more Secure Attachment styles, while others correlate with various flavors of jealousy.
Surprisingly, these trends held steady whether couples were mixed-gender or same-gender, suggesting that playfulness (much like jealousy) is a universal human quirk.
Now, we’ve long known that playfulness is a desired trait in romantic partners. If you don’t believe me, go scroll through a few dating app bios—right between loves to travel and seeks gym partner, you’ll find must have a good sense of humor.
But this study went a step further, investigating how different styles of playfulness shape attachment security and jealousy. Being whimsical might make you fun, but it also makes you a tiny bit paranoid.
The Four Horsemen of Playfulness (But Not in an Apocalypse Kind of Way)
To conduct their research, psychologists Kay Brauer, Rebekka Sendatzki, and René T. Proyer assembled a grand collection of 471 couples (332 mixed-gender, 139 same-gender) and subjected them to the rigorous science of online questionnaires.
Participants answered a series of questions designed to measure their attachment styles, playfulness tendencies, and how jealous they get when their partner laughs at someone else’s jokes.
The researchers identified four main species of playfulness in the wild:
Other-Directed Playfulness – The kind where people use humor and lightheartedness to connect with others, often through affectionate teasing. These people could probably charm their way out of a parking ticket.
Lighthearted Playfulness – The free spirits who see life as a game and take nothing too seriously. The "let’s backpack through Europe with no plan" types.
Intellectual Playfulness – People who enjoy playing with ideas and abstract concepts. The ones who will debate whether a hotdog is a sandwich at Thanksgiving dinner.
Whimsical playfulness – The folks who revel in the odd, unconventional, and quirky. The ones who wear mismatched socks on purpose.
Attachment Styles: The Emotional Operating Systems of Relationships
The researchers then explored how these playfulness types interact with two core attachment styles:
Attachment Anxiety – Folk who worry that their partner will abandon them for a more attractive barista at any moment.
Attachment Avoidance – Folks who treat emotional intimacy like a malfunctioning microwave: something best handled at a safe distance.
And lo and behold, those who scored high in other-directed, lighthearted, and intellectual playfulness tended to be more secure in their relationships.
They weren’t plagued by constant fear of abandonment or the need to avoid emotional closeness.
Meanwhile, whimsical playfulness? Eh, not so much. Turns out being delightfully quirky doesn’t necessarily make you feel safer in love.
And Now, the Jealousy Drama
Let’s talk about jealousy, because nothing spices up a relationship like a well-timed emotional meltdown. The researchers measured three types:
Cognitive Jealousy – "Is my partner secretly texting their ex?"
Emotional Jealousy – "Why does my partner look so happy at that party? I’m going to frown at them for an hour."
Behavioral Jealousy – "I’ll just casually glance at their phone notifications... for science."
Interestingly, all four types of playfulness were linked to lower emotional jealousy.
In other words, playful people were less likely to spiral into dramatic internal monologues about perceived slights.
However, whimsical playfulness was a wildcard—it was associated with higher cognitive and behavioral jealousy. These folks might not throw a fit, but they will absolutely overthink everything and possibly check your social media likes with forensic precision.
The Partner Effect: How Your Playfulness Messes With Your Significant Other
The study also explored how one partner’s playfulness affected the other’s jealousy levels.
The results? If you’re lightheartedly playful, your partner might develop more cognitive jealousy, meaning they’ll start wondering about all the people you’ve ever smiled at.
But if you’re whimsically playful, your partner might actually feel less emotional jealousy—maybe because they’re too busy figuring out your latest elaborate inside joke.
What’s the Big Takeaway?
First, let’s be clear: this study only found correlations, not causation. We can’t say for certain that being playful causes lower attachment anxiety or that being whimsical makes you turn into Sherlock Holmes every time your partner gets a text. But what we can say is this:
Being playful, particularly in a way that fosters connection (a.k.a. "teasing your partner, but in a loving way"), tends to make relationships feel more secure.
Being lighthearted or intellectually playful might make you less prone to relationship anxiety.
Being whimsically playful? Fantastic for Instagram captions. Slightly more complicated for jealousy management.
The researchers suggest that future studies should examine how playfulness shifts over the course of a relationship.
Does it decline with age? Can it be taught? More importantly—can we un-teach whimsical playfulness before someone spirals into a Reddit deep dive on their partner’s old vacation photos?
Only time (and science) will tell.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Brauer, K., Sendatzki, R., & Proyer, R. T. (2025). Extending the study of playfulness in romantic life: Analyzing associations with attachment and jealousy in same-gender and opposite-gender couples. Scientific Reports.