An analysis of situation and person components of jealousy

Abstract

Previous studies on jealousy have focused on person factors or on situational factors, but none has compared their relative importance. Two studies are presented which analyze the contributions of persons, situations, and their interaction, with respect to jealous reactions. The first study examined intraperson variability in the intensity of jealous responses of 302 males and females when presented with four types of hypothetical jealousy situations (work, family, social, and sexual). The results of the first study supported a dispositional explanation of jealousy (i.e., substantial person and situational variance). In addition, a sizable interaction effect was revealed. Study 2 examined the nature of this interaction for sexual jealousy. Jealousy situations were broken down by distinguishing between the event, characteristics of the partner, and the relationship as separate components of the situation. Seventy-one female respondents indicated their perception of threat and their degree of upset when considering the same hypothetical jealousy-evoking events with three different partners. A substantial person component was found. In addition, responses to the jealousy-evoking events were found to vary as a function of which partner was being considered. The second study demonstrated that aspects of the relationship (i.e., relative involvement) were more important than personality characteristics of the partner in determining this intrasubject variability in the intensity of jealous rections.