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Abstract
Jealousy research primarily involves identifying and studying antecedents and correlates of jealousy experience and expression. To learn more about the consequences of jealousy expression, this project proposes and tests four potential cognitive and emotional reactions to anothers jealousy expression. Specifically, general partner uncertainty, relational uncertainty, jealousy-related emotion, and rumination are predicted to arise when ones close relational partner expresses jealousy. These reactions are examined in relation to relational context (i.e., dating partnership, sibling relationship, and cross-sex friendship) and jealousy expression type (i.e., integrative communication, distributive communication, and negative affect expression). Uncertainty findings revealed that cross-sex friends were more uncertain about the partner and the relationship than either siblings or daters after another expresses jealousy. Siblings experienced greater relational uncertainty than did dating partners when reacting to anothers jealousy expression. In addition, anothers use of negative affect expression was related to greater partner and relational uncertainty compared with anothers use of integrative communication. For jealousy-related emotion, siblings and dating partners experienced stronger jealousy-related emotion compared with cross-sex friends, though jealousyrelated emotion levels did not differ according to jealousy expression type. In terms of rumination, when ones partner used distributive communication or negative affect expression to communicate jealousy, that individual ruminated more than if integrative communication was used. Rumination levels did not differ according to relational context. In addition, a reaction model of jealousy is presented that specifies the order in which these reactions occur after ones close partner expresses jealousy. After ones partner expresses jealousy, that individual first experiences general partner uncertainty, followed by relational uncertainty. Next, the individual ruminates about the jealousy expression and then finally experiences jealousy-related emotion. These results broaden jealousy expression research to include consequences of jealousy expression.