The Green-Eyed Monster in Social Media – Development and Validation of a Digital Jealousy Scale

Abstract

Romantic jealousy describes a feeling when individuals suspect losing their romantic partner to a potential rival. Social media has a high potential to trigger romantic jealousy as it offers almost unlimited opportunities to build social relationships. Thus, it is unsurprising that many studies are now examining social media‐induced jealousy (SoMJ). However, there has been a lack of standardized instruments that can capture SoMJ independently of a specific social media platform. In the present two studies, we developed the 9-item Digital Jealousy Scale (DJS) in German and English and examined its psychometric properties using three heterogeneous samples from Germany and the United Kingdom. The postulated one-factor structure fitted the data very well. Additionally, construct validity was established by showing the expected correlations between the DJS and personality variables such as other jealousy measures, attachment dimensions, self-esteem, and the Big Five dimensions. The DJS is thus a valuable instrument to assess SoMJ.

Social Media Friendship Jealousy

“…Discriminant validity was established with the HEXACO model of personality. Social media friendship jealousy was unrelated to extraversion and weakly associated with agreeableness consistent with previous research on friendship jealousy ( Kokkinos et al, 2020 ) and romantic jealousy ( Gubler et al, 2023 ; Richter et al, 2022 ). Contrary to predictions, social media friendship jealousy had a modest negative association with conscientiousness.…”

“…Thus, low conscientiousness might equate to less reciprocation online, which in turn, generates increased feelings of jealousy. This would help to make sense of some of the discrepant findings in previous research (e.g., Gubler et al, 2023 ; Kokkinos et al, 2020 ). Social media friendship jealousy is also technologically driven via applications, and previous work has shown that conscientiousness negatively predicts social media addiction ( Dailey et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The modest negative association with conscientiousness is different from previous studies on jealousy. Kokkinos et al (2020) reported a small negative correlation between conscientiousness with friendship jealousy ( r = −.15), but Richter et al (2022) and Gubler et al (2023) found no relation between romantic jealousy and conscientiousness. Fourth, contrary to initial predictions, gender and age differences were not found.…”

“…The 60-item HEXACO scale assesses six personality dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience (10 items per dimension; Ashton & Lee, 2007 ). In the present study, Extraversion (α = .81), Agreeableness (α = .77), and Conscientiousness (α = .79) were used to establish discriminant validity based on previous findings ( Gubler et al, 2023 ; Kokkinos et al, 2020 ; Richter et al, 2022 ). Participants responded along a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( strongly agree ) to 5 ( strongly disagree ).…”

“… Richter et al (2022) found that romantic relationship jealousy was not predicted by extraversion and conscientiousness. Gubler et al (2023) developed a new digital jealousy scale for romantic relationships and found that it held no relation to extraversion, conscientiousness, or agreeableness.…”