Relationship orientation, jealousy, and equity: An examination of jealousy evoking and positive communicative responses

The intentional evoking of jealousy has received little attention in interpersonal research, yet eliciting jealousy in another may perform critical functions in relationships such as meeting personal needs and relational goals. The purposes of these two studies were to examine how evoking jealousy may be used as a communicative strategy in relationships, and to develop the Evoking Jealousy Scale. Two studies examined evoking jealousy, relationship orientation (exchange versus communal), positive responses to jealousy, and equity in relationships. Results from study one indicated both exchange oriented and communal oriented individuals make attempts to evoke jealousy from their partners. Results from study two indicate the only variable in this study related to the active strategy of evoking jealousy was being exchange oriented. Feelings of equity, being overbenefited, and communal orientation each were related to positive responses to feeling jealous. The Evoking Jealousy Scale was developed and tested in study two and appears to have good face validity, unidimensional factor structure, and internal reliability

Key concepts:

• evoking jealousy
• relationship orientation
• equity