Effects of Jealousy Threats on Relationship Perceptions and Emotions

Abstract

The experimental induction of jealousy threat in a specific situation, using an imagery task, affected subjects' perceptions of themselves and of their romantic relationships, and influenced their emotions. Jealousy-provoking situations increased subjects' perceptions of themselves as jealous in their relationships, and their perceptions of themselves as more emotionally involved in the relationship relative to their partners. Jealousy threat decreased levels of perceived security and stability of the relationship and self-perceived feelings of attractiveness and acceptability to partners. These jealousy-provoking scenes also elicited a complexity of emotions: decreased joy and an increased series of negative emotions. When subjects imagined themselves in a high threat condition, where the loss of their partners seemed imminent, they evaluated their relationships as significantly less secure/ stable, and reported greater intensities of surprise, fear and distress in contrast to the low threat scenes. Dispositional measures of self-esteem and jealousy did not significantly predict jealousy-induced relationship perceptions, although these person variables were somewhat correlated with subjects' ratings of characteristics of their relationships in general. It was concluded that situational variables, such as level of jealousy threat, affect both emotions and cognitions related to the self and relationship based upon the salient characteristics of the situation. Some evidence was found for an interactional explanation of romantic jealousy which requires further investigation.