Jealousy, Romantic Love, and Liking: Theoretical Considerations and Preliminary Scale Development

Abstract

The studies reported in this paper had two purposes, the construction of a measure of jealousy and the use of this measure to test some prevalent beliefs concerning jealousy with the aim of providing construct validity for the scale and expanding our empirical understanding of jealousy. Using the rational approach to test construction, a 28-item test was constructed. This scale was expected to correlate positively with romantic love, insecurity, and low self-esteem and negatively with separate identities. Also scores should not correlate with liking. These relationships were noted except for positive correlations between jealousy and insecurity for men and jealousy and low selfesteem for both sexes. Enough evidence for construct validity was found to warrant further use of the scale for research. It war suggested that open marriage relationships must be based primarily on liking rather than romantic love to avoid jealousy.

Tickling the monster: Jealousy induction in relationships

“…People who feel inadequate in a relationship or are themselves jealous, suspicious, or fearful may intentionally create jealousy to gain self-esteem and confidence. People who experience these feelings may have a predisposition to be jealous (Mathes & Severa, 1981;Sharpsteen, 1995). Such individuals may even create these feelings in a partner to turn the tables.…”

A systematic review of romantic jealousy in relationships

“…items derived from scales, auto standardized reports and questionnaires developed ad hoc. the most widely used instruments have been the forced choice measures based on the Infidelity Dilemmas (Buss, Larsen, Nancy Martínez-León, Juan Peña, Hernán Salazar, Andrea García y Juan Carlos Sierra & semmelroth, 1992; Buss et al, 1999), which were used in 62 studies (24.6%); the Multidimensional Jealousy scale (pfeiffer & Wong, 1989) in 21 (8.3%); the interpersonal Jealousy scale (Mathes & severa, 1981) used in 13 studies (5.2%); the Jealousy scale (Buunk, 1997) used in ten studies (4%) and the Jealousy evoking scenario (Dijkstra & Buunk, 2002) used in seven studies (2.8%) and 59 studies used ad hoc questionnaires (23.4%). the main results of each of the variables are integrated below.…”

Jealousy and commitment: Perceived threat and the effect of relationship alternatives

“…A correlational approach is a reasonable first step in understanding the relation between perceptions of relationship commitment and jealousy because greater perceptions of commitment should be related to greater distress in response to a jealousy-evoking event. Indeed, the literature on jealousy has generally supported this supposition (e.g., Buunk, 1982Buunk, , 1991Buunk & Bringle, 1987;Mathes, 1986;Mathes & Severa, 1981;White, 1981).…”