Which personality traits going along with being “the jealous type?” A study published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that there are people who are high in neuroticism, low in agreeableness, and low in openness are more likely to be jealous in their romantic relationships.
Jealousy is a trait that tends to be thought of in regard to romantic relationships but can occur in a myriad of situations throughout the lifespan. Jealousy is thought of as unpleasant but can also be said to serve adaptive functions.
Attachment style and jealousy have been researched before, showing different jealousy tendencies for people with secure, anxious, or avoidant attachment. The Big Five personality traits have been studied in regard to many constructs, including relationship satisfaction and interpersonal relationships. Despite this, there is a lack of research about the Big Five’s relationship with jealousy. This study seeks to bridge this gap.
Marina Richter and colleagues collected a sample of 509 women and 338 men recruited from flyers, psychology mailing lists, blogs, and social media. They ranged in age from 18 to 63 years old. The sample was predominantly heterosexual and around 3/4th of the participants were in a committed relationship. Participants completed measures on the Big Five personality traits, adult attachment, romantic jealousy, and relationship status variable.
Results showed that higher neuroticism, lower openness, and lower agreeableness were predictors of higher jealousy tendencies. In regard to attachment dimensions, how much a person relies on others and anxiety about being abandoned were predictors of jealousy, while comfort with closeness had no relationship to jealousy. The variance was similar for Big Five traits and attachment, implying that there are significant similarities between these constructs that cause overlap.
Richter and colleagues tested if these effects were changed by gender, relationship status, or partner’s infidelity. Surprisingly, personality traits and attachment dimensions predicted jealousy equally across all of these groups. Women showed more emotional jealousy while men showed more sexual jealousy. Single people reported higher levels of jealousy with their previous partners than people in relationships reported with their current partners.
“In sum, gender, relationship status, and infidelity experiences were found to be associated with differences in romantic jealousy,” the researchers explained. “Despite these mean differences, however, the pattern of associations of romantic jealousy with personality traits and attachment dimensions seems to be unaffected by gender, relationship status, and infidelity experiences. This finding points to a stable network of personal characteristics underlying romantic jealousy.”
This study took steps into better understanding the mechanisms underlying jealousy. Despite this, it has limitations. One such limitation is that this study utilized self-report measures, which can be especially vulnerable to deception and biases. Additionally, the sample was predominantly heterosexual. Future research could aim to be more inclusive with sexuality and gender.
The study, “Adult Attachment and Personality as Predictors of Jealousy in Romantic Relationships“, was authored by Marina Richter, Katja Schlegel, Philipp Thomas, and Stefan Johannes Troche.
