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 self-esteem for both sexes. Enough evidence for construct validity was found to warrant further use of the scale for research. It was suggested that open marriage relationships must be based primarily on liking rather than romantic love to avoid jealousy.