jealousy research

Attachment and Jealousy: Understanding the Dynamic Experience of Jealousy Using the Response Escalation Paradigm

Affiliations.

• 1 1 University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
• 2 2 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
• 3 3 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
• PMID: 29771201
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167218772530

Jealousy is a complex, dynamic experience that unfolds over time in relationship-threatening situations. Prior research has used retrospective reports that cannot disentangle initial levels and change in jealousy in response to escalating threat. In three studies, we examined responses to the Response Escalation Paradigm (REP)-a 5-stage hypothetical scenario in which individuals are exposed to increasing levels of relationship threat-as a function of attachment orientations. Highly anxious individuals exhibited hypervigilant, slow escalation response patterns, interfered earlier in the REP, felt more jealousy, sadness, and worry when they interfered, and wanted to engage in more vigilant, destructive, and passive behaviors aimed at their partner. Highly avoidant individuals felt more anger when they interfered in the REP and wanted to engage in more partner-focused, destructive behaviors. The REP offers a dynamic method for inducing and examining jealousy and introduces a novel approach to studying other emotional experiences.

Keywords: adult attachment; emotion in relationships; emotions; romantic relationships.

• Anger / physiology
• Anxiety / psychology*
• Interpersonal Relations*
• Object Attachment*

Jealousy due to social media? A systematic literature review and framework of social media-induced jealousy

Internet Research

ISSN : 1066-2243

Article publication date: 12 April 2021

Issue publication date: 1 November 2021

The association between social media and jealousy is an aspect of the dark side of social media that has garnered significant attention in the past decade. However, the understanding of this association is fragmented and needs to be assimilated to provide scholars with an overview of the current boundaries of knowledge in this area. This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to fulfill this need.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors undertake an SLR to assimilate the current knowledge regarding the association between social media and jealousy, and they examine the phenomenon of social media-induced jealousy (SoMJ). Forty-five empirical studies are curated and analyzed using stringent protocols to elucidate the existing research profile and thematic research areas.

The research themes emerging from the SLR are (1) the need for a theoretical and methodological grounding of the concept, (2) the sociodemographic differences in SoMJ experiences, (3) the antecedents of SoMJ (individual, partner, rival and platform affordances) and (4) the positive and negative consequences of SoMJ. Conceptual and methodological improvements are needed to undertake a temporal and cross-cultural investigation of factors that may affect SoMJ and acceptable thresholds for social media behavior across different user cohorts. This study also identifies the need to expand current research boundaries by developing new methodologies and focusing on under-investigated variables.

Originality/value

The study may assist in the development of practical measures to raise awareness about the adverse consequences of SoMJ, such as intimate partner violence and cyberstalking.

• Individual differences
• Partner conflict
• Relationships
• Social media
• Systematic review

Tandon, A. , Dhir, A. and Mäntymäki, M. (2021), "Jealousy due to social media? A systematic literature review and framework of social media-induced jealousy", Internet Research , Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 1541-1582. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-02-2020-0103

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Anushree Tandon, Amandeep Dhir and Matti Mäntymäki

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Social media platforms (SMPs), such as Facebook and Instagram, have undoubtedly had positive effects, such as the creation of an enhanced sense of well-being by reducing negative emotions ( Rozgonjuk et al. , 2019 ) and increasing self-esteem ( Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ). SMPs have also been lauded for their potential to foster relationships ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ) and sustain social capital ( Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ; Mod, 2010 ). The perceived benefits of SMPs may have catalyzed their pervasive adoption across the globe; consequently, their use has become an integral part of people's daily routines. According to recent estimates, the number of active social media users worldwide has surpassed 3 billion, and they spend an average of 136 minutes per day accessing SMPs ( Statista, 2019 ). Furthermore, the lockdowns that were implemented to fight the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic further increased the use of SMPs worldwide ( GlobalWebIndex, 2020 ; Tregoning, 2020 ). All of these factors have prompted increased scholarly efforts to understand the effects of SMPs – especially the negative side of increased SMP engagement (i.e., the dark side of social media) – on individuals' lives ( Tandon et al. , 2020 ; Islam et al. , 2019 ; Talwar et al. , 2019 ; Dhir et al. , 2018 , 2019 ; Baccarella et al. , 2018 ; Salo et al. , 2018 ; Mäntymäki and Islam, 2016 ). However, despite this considerable scholarly attention, distinct voids exist in regard to understanding the detrimental influence of SMP use patterns on various aspects of individuals' lives ( Rozgonjuk et al. , 2019 ). One void pertains to understanding social media-induced jealousy (SoMJ) as a distinct phenomenon ( Seidman, 2019 ; Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ).

SoMJ was brought to the academic forefront by Muise et al. (2009) , who developed a scale to examine romantic jealousy in the context of Facebook. Their study has often been referred to as the foundation of the field of research examining jealousy in the context of social media ( Elphinston and Noller, 2011 ; Utz and Beukeboom, 2011 ). A recent report suggested that 33% of single individuals in the United States (US) can feel worse about their own lives after noticing SMP content about others' relationships, and 34% of young partnered adults (aged 18–29 years) and 26% of older adults have experienced jealousy or insecurity due to their partners' SMP use or activities ( Vogels and Anderson, 2020 ). Since its recognition in 2009, SoMJ-oriented research has steadily grown, but it is also subject to a certain degree of fragmentation and limitations.

The present study is positioned to fill three gaps in the extant body of SoMJ knowledge. The first gap relates to understanding the influence of SMPs on users' experiences of SoMJ, its antecedents, and its subsequent impact on interpersonal relationships ( Dunn and Ward, 2020 ; Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ; Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ). In particular, there is a limited understanding of the intricate associations between an individual's SMP use, jealousy and other variables, such as individual differences ( Seidman, 2019 ). Second, there is a limited understanding of how online media, such as SMPs, contribute to the evocation of jealousy due to perceived or actual infidelity that is perpetuated through virtual means. Such infidelity may be attributed to emotional relatedness, closeness or friendship statuses among SMP users ( Dunn and Ward, 2020 ). Third, minimal research has explored the direct consequences of SoMJ for behavioral responses ( Muscanell and Guadagno, 2016 ), such as relational aggression or violent behavior ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ) and infidelity ( Carpenter, 2016 ), as well as the outcomes for relationships, such as offline relational conflicts ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ). This is especially significant because SMP use has been linked to the potential breakdown of marriages. For instance, Holmgren and Coyne (2017) suggested that maladaptive SMP use is correlated with relational dissatisfaction ( Stewart et al. , 2014 ), especially for married couples ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ). According to a study by McKinley Irvin, a law firm in the US, 16% of married couples have linked Facebook to experiencing jealousy, 25% have experienced weekly arguments about Facebook use and 14% have contemplated divorce because of their partner's social media activities ( Starks, 2019 ). Thus, popular media and academic research have acknowledged that SMPs are redefining interpersonal relationships and promulgating jealousy ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ; Carpenter, 2016 ; Muise et al. , 2009 ).

Considering these gaps in the literature and the rising number of incidents that correlate SMP use with relational breakdowns and conflicts ( Starks, 2019 ), there is a need for researchers to examine the causes of SoMJ, as well as the mechanisms through which it can affect relationships. Consequently, we use the study of Muscanell and Guadagno (2016) as a conversant, or point of reference (cf. Huff, 1998 ) that presents a narrative review of the effect of SMP on romantic relationships in terms of jealousy and other emotions experienced by the affected individuals. This study extends their review in three specific ways. First, we undertake a systematic literature review (SLR; Ahmad et al. , 2018 ; Kitchenham et al. , 2009 ; Webster and Watson, 2002 ) to develop a comprehensive and holistic view of SoMJ. An SLR can effectively assist scholars in drawing a comprehensive overview of the existing literature in a field ( Kushwah et al. , 2019 ; Talwar et al. , 2020a ; Khanra et al. , 2020 ; Dhir et al. , 2020 ). Based on their comprehension, scholars can draw conclusions about the phenomena under investigation through the SLR and identify incumbent research gaps, which can have significant implications for the advancement of both theory and practice ( Khanra et al. , 2020 ; Dhir et al. , 2020 ). Thus, the primary objective of this study is to assimilate and critically analyze the extant literature to explicate the current intellectual boundaries of the SoMJ concept, identify its antecedents and consequences, and suggest future research avenues based on the identified gaps. Subsequently, the second way in which our study contributes to the research on SoMJ and the dark side of social media is by explicating emergent research themes and associated gaps in the prior knowledge on SoMJ to propose potential avenues for future research. Third, we offer a contemporary profile of prior research by reviewing studies from 2009, when one of the first seminal studies in this field was published ( Muise et al. , 2009 ), to 2019. Thus, this SLR assimilates a decade of research on SoMJ to report on state-of-art research trends and identifies avenues to advance theory and research through the proposed SoMJ framework. Our findings – especially the identified antecedents and consequences of SoMJ – have the potential to assist practitioners (e.g., clinicians) to generate public awareness regarding the adverse effects of SoMJ in relational management. We believe that our SLR is well-timed due to the increasing number of reports that have highlighted that jealousy, acrimony, and stress due to social media use may have increased during the COVID-19 lockdown (e.g., Tregoning, 2020 ; Li et al. , 2020 ).

To the best of our knowledge, only one existing SLR aligns with the theme of the current study (see Rus and Tiemensma, 2017 ). However, it focused on explicating the associations between romantic relationships and social media. In contrast, the present study focuses on a more comprehensive and holistic examination of SoMJ, assimilating prior empirical information related to its antecedents and consequences to delineate gaps in the current knowledge. Thus, the novelty of this study lies in its significant difference from the earlier SLR due to the adoption of a holistic perspective and a more focused research theme and scope. This SLR is guided by the following research questions (RQs): RQ1 : What is the current status and profile of research on SoMJ? RQ2 : What are the focal themes, antecedents, and consequences of SoMJ that have been discussed in the prior literature? RQ3 : What are the gaps in the extant literature, and what future research avenues can be identified based on these gaps?

The findings suggest that prior research focused attention on understanding the (1) theoretical and methodological approach to the concept of SoMJ; (2) influence of sociodemographic differences in SoMJ experiences; (3) antecedents in terms of the incumbent actors – that is, individuals, partners and rivals – as well as relational parameters and platform affordances; and (4) positive and negative consequences of SoMJ. Based on our findings, we have also proposed a framework derived from the explicated research gaps and the hitherto under-explored associations of SoMJ to guide future scholars. This SoMJ framework discusses the scope for advancing conceptualization, the methodological approaches, the role of incumbent actors and the potential moderator variables. Regarding the antecedents, these associations are related to individual-partner characteristics, perceived rivals and relational dynamics. Additionally, the framework directs attention toward the need to examine the effect of SoMJ on individuals' online and offline emotions and actions toward their partners and rivals.

The remainder of this manuscript addresses the RQs. Section 2 commences with an overview of the concept of jealousy and the social media features that have the potential to evoke this emotion among users. Section 3 explicates the protocols adhered to for this SLR, as well as the details of the extant research profile in terms of noteworthy contributing authors, publication trends, and methodologies. Section 4 focuses on the emergent research themes derived from the SLR. Section 5 discusses the existing gaps and the potential future avenues for research. Additionally, it proposes an SoMJ framework for the future examination of SoMJ, which constitutes a significant contribution of this study. Finally, Section 6 presents the concluding remarks, as well as the implications and limitations of this study.

2. Background literature

2.1 jealousy.

Jealousy is defined as a metamorphic compound emotion that encompasses a compendium of feelings ( Kristjánsson, 2016 ; Pfeiffer and Wong, 1989 ). The extant literature suggests that the multifaceted nature of jealousy is yet to be equivocally defined and conceptualized ( Kristjánsson, 2016 ). However, the concept of jealousy may be broadly characterized as the perceived or actual threat of losing a valued relationship ( Muise et al. , 2014 ). It may also be understood as an emotional response to such a perceived threat ( Utz and Beukeboom, 2011 ; Pfeiffer and Wong, 1989 ), where in most instances, the valued relationship is primarily romantic or sexual in nature ( Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ).

Prior studies have offered divergent characterizations of the various dimensions of jealousy, especially with regard to individuals who are engaged in romantic relationships. For instance, Pfeiffer and Wong (1989) characterized jealousy as incorporating behavioral (partner surveillance activities), cognitive (appraisal of threats or suspicions), and affective (negative emotions experienced due to perceived threats) dimensions. Utz and Beukeboom (2011) also discussed different forms of jealousy – namely, reactive, anxious and possessive. While reactive jealousy results from an actual threat arising out of any form of infidelity, anxious and possessive forms of jealousy may arise out of a perceived threat that causes rumination and monitoring behavior, respectively. Dainton and Stokes (2015) posited that individuals might also experience cognitive and emotional types of situational jealousy in romantic relationships due to the inherent uncertainty of such relationships. In addition, Frampton and Fox (2018) distinguished between the concepts of retrospective and retroactive jealousy. Retrospective jealousy is directed at a rival who threatened a current relationship in the past, while retroactive jealousy is evoked by an individual's focus on his or her partner's previous relationship(s) ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ).

Prior research indicates that jealousy is associated with a mixture of emotions, including disgust ( Muscanell and Guadagno, 2016 ), betrayal ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ), resentment ( Dunn and Ward, 2020 ), sadness ( Macapagal et al. , 2016 ), threat and anger ( Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ), and envy ( Miller et al. , 2014 ). Further, Dunn and Ward (2020) suggested that jealousy incorporates the direction of an individual's emotions, such as distrust or resentment toward their partner/significant other due to suspected infidelity and/or romantic contact with a rival. Scholars have also characterized jealousy as a multifactorial phenomenon that encompasses various forms of behavioral reactions – for example, violence ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ) and thoughts and actions that may affect the quality or stability of a relationship ( Moyano et al. , 2017 ).

Thus, we extend prior definitions of jealousy to the context of SMPs. We propose that SoMJ may be understood as the “jealousy experienced by an individual due to a potential threat (perceived or actual) of the loss or deterioration of a romantic relationship due specifically to their partner's or spouse's use of and activities undertaken on SMPs, especially if such activities involve a potential rival for extra-dyadic, romantic attention.”

There seems to be an overlap between the concepts of jealousy and envy, which are often used interchangeably in the general vernacular ( Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ). Scholars argue that despite their similarities, jealousy and envy differ. Chung and Harris (2018) suggested that jealousy and envy may be driven by different emotional processes and perhaps even different motivations. Kristjánsson (2016) argued that envy is considered to be a distinct emotion that relates to an individual's desire to attain an object of attention that is deemed to be absent from his or her life. Similarly, Dijkstra et al. (2013) suggested that envy is related to two people, thus suggesting a duality of interaction. In contrast, jealousy is described as the fear of losing an already obtained person or relationship to another person and creates a triangle of potential interaction ( Kristjánsson, 2016 ; Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ). Therefore, we concur that envy and jealousy are distinct emotional states ( Chung and Harris, 2018 ). The present study focuses solely on SoMJ.

2.2 Social media features: the potential to evoke jealousy

The extant research suggests that social media may affect an individual's experience with jealousy, and multiple studies have aimed to understand the association between social media and jealousy. In their seminal study, Muise et al. (2014) measured Facebook jealousy as a singular dimension that may be characterized as a form of trait jealousy ( Cohen et al. , 2014 ). Social media has been described as a complex tool and environment for initiating and maintaining communication with partners ( Fleuriet et al. , 2014 ). Scholars suggest that some aspects of social media can assist individuals in maintaining interpersonal (e.g., romantic) relationships ( Dainton and Stokes, 2015 ) and facilitating peer interactions ( Rueda et al. , 2015 ). For instance, indicating one's relationship status on social media may be interpreted as a public display of affection and an announcement of the exclusivity of the relationship within one's social circle ( Orosz et al. , 2015 ). This has been referred to as going “Facebook official,” which has previously been linked to relational satisfaction ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ). Similarly, SMPs may also assist individuals in maintaining long-distance relationships by allowing virtual proximity despite geographical distance ( Billedo et al. , 2015 ).

SMPs, such as Facebook, also have certain features that may contribute to an enhanced perception of jealousy-inducing threats. According to Muscanell and Guadagno (2016) , the public (i.e., transparent) and permanent nature of the information that is present on SMPs may have significant ramifications for inducing jealousy, which is contingent on users' motivation and usage of these platforms. SMPs, like Facebook, may create an environment with limited privacy ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ) and have the potential to induce unrestrained flirtatious behavior ( Brem et al. , 2015 ). User-specific settings for privacy and content sharing have also been implicated for their potential to evoke negative emotions, such as jealousy, and behavioral responses (e.g., Muscanell and Guadagno, 2016 ; Muscanell et al. , 2013 ). Furthermore, prior studies indicate that acontextual ( Muise et al. , 2009 ) and ambiguous information on SMPs may increase partner-monitoring or surveillance behaviors ( Muscanell and Guadagno, 2016 ). In fact, SMPs are considered to provide individuals with a socially acceptable form of monitoring their partners' activities ( Brem et al. , 2015 ; Muise et al. , 2014 ). Such monitoring may occur through multiple modes, such as sharing passwords ( Bevan, 2018 ), reviewing photos shared by partners or friends ( Halpern et al. , 2017 ), and accepting new SMP friend requests ( Carpenter, 2016 ). Similarly, it has been suggested that other aspects of SMPs, such as the use of nonverbal cues (e.g., emoticons), also evoke jealousy ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ).

Consequently, it can be argued that social media can have a dual effect on relational maintenance and quality by influencing an individual's experience with jealousy. In the context of Facebook, Altakhaineh and Alnamer (2018) explained that such platforms can help users maintain continual connections with close as well as distant relationships but also have the capacity to evoke suspicion and jealousy in romantic relationships. Additionally, such an impact may differ in its emergent form due to gender ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ), personality ( Seidman, 2019 ) and even cross-cultural differences ( Iqbal and Jami, 2017 ; Zandbergen and Brown, 2015 ). This contradictory nature of the possible impact of Facebook on social relationships has been referred to as the “Facebook paradox” ( Altakhaineh and Alnamer, 2018 ). Due to the evidentiary link between SoMJ and the posited adverse effects on marriages ( Starks, 2019 ) and romantic relationships – for example, through intimate partner violence ( Brem et al. , 2015 ) – we argue for an urgent need to better understand the association between social media use and jealousy. Consequently, newer empirical investigations are required to bridge the existing gaps in the literature. However, this will first require an understanding of the current scope and boundaries of the previously investigated associations. Thus, it is necessary to identify the existing gaps and the scope of future research on this topic. The current SLR study aims to address these gaps by presenting the thematic areas of prior research, identifying gaps, and outlining agendas for future research based on identified gaps.

To conduct the review, we followed the protocols suggested by Behera et al. (2019) , Ahmad et al. (2018) , and Kitchenham et al. (2009) . These protocols were followed to ensure the transparency and reproducibility of the systematic method used to assimilate the data set ( Tranfield et al. , 2003 ). This study was conducted in two distinct stages. The first dealt with the determination of the search and article selection criteria, and the second pertained to the presentation of the results. The data set was curated following the results arising from both direct search and citation chaining to present an exhaustive, structured overview ( Kitchenham et al. , 2009 ; Webster and Watson, 2002 ). The SLR focused on curating current empirical knowledge on SoMJ and the possible association between social media use and jealousy.

3.1 Article search and selection

The review process began with the identification of appropriate search terms and databases, as well as the subsequent determination of search syntaxes. Jealousy is a multifaceted construct ( Kristjánsson, 2016 ), and SMPs have been investigated in the context of multiple disciplines, including psychology, information technology, sociology, and medical science ( Fox and Moreland, 2015 ). Consequently, the current study considered four databases from which to select the relevant literature: Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), PsycINFO and PubMed. These were determined to provide appropriate coverage of the literature ( Sigerson and Cheng, 2018 ). The concept of SMP-induced jealousy was seminally conceptualized in 2009 ( Muise et al. , 2009 ). Therefore, to synthesize a decade of academic attention to the association between social media and jealousy, the review process considered all the relevant articles published between 2009 and 2019. The databases were searched in December 2019 using the keyword “jealousy” in conjunction with “social media,” “social networking,” and “SNS.” In addition, the specific names of SMPs – namely, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, WeChat and Weibo – were utilized in the search.

The initial search identified 121 results, which were reviewed to remove duplicates. Subsequently, following specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, 45 original studies were identified for further review (see Figure 1 ) and assessed for quality and appropriateness. At this stage, five studies were removed because they were considered inappropriate either due to a lack of empirical focus on jealousy or insufficient discussion of the associations and findings. To complete the feedback loop, backward and forward citations were conducted for the 40 remaining studies. Over 700 studies, which had been referenced by or referred to an article, were reviewed using a backward and forward citation search, which led to the addition of five studies to the final data set. To ensure the robustness of the review process, citation chaining was performed, as well as a subsequently curated data set, as suggested by the methodological literature ( Tranfield et al. , 2003 ; Webster and Watson, 2002 ). The selection process was reviewed by two coauthors at each stage to ensure the comprehensiveness of the overall process. Subsequently, 45 studies were identified as appropriate for further analysis; these constitute the final data set for this study (see Table 1 ).

3.2 RQ1 . Research status and profile

The curated data set of 45 empirical studies was analyzed to determine the status of the research on understanding the association between social media and jealousy. Since 2009, the publication trend shows increasing scholarly attention being focused on the examination of SoMJ (see Figure 2 ), but this attention has been concentrated primarily on Facebook as the platform of investigation (68.9% of studies; see Table 1 ). Further, the data set was analyzed to understand the geographic scope of prior studies, which suggests that studies have focused primarily on examining SoMJ in the context of developed nations, such as the US ( n  = 22), the United Kingdom ( n  = 3), Canada ( n  = 3), and the Netherlands ( n  = 3), while significantly less attention has been paid to the context of developing nations, such as Pakistan ( n  = 2), the United Arab Emirates ( n  = 1), and Turkey ( n  = 1). Additionally, from a cultural perspective, it may be said that the current understanding of this phenomenon is skewed toward research originating from more individualistic cultures, with a lack of studies focusing on more community-oriented, collectivist cultures. The leading journals in terms of publication productivity are Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking ( n  = 7), Computers in Human Behavior ( n  = 5), Evolutionary Psychological Science ( n  = 2), Journal of Social and Personal Relationships ( n  = 2) and Personal Relationships ( n  = 2). Finally, word clouds were generated for titles and author as well as indexed keywords of select studies to identify focal research issues. The word clouds suggested that SoMJ has primarily been studied in the context of romantic relationships with Facebook as the platform, as the dominant keywords identified from the figures included “social,” “jealousy,” “Facebook,” “romantic,” “relationships” and “media.”

4. RQ2 . Findings of the review: focal themes of prior research

Prior research has addressed multiple aspects of the association between jealousy and social media. However, a cohesive perspective and holistic overview of the myriad variables, frameworks, and approaches that have been previously adopted to study these associations is absent. Our study addresses this gap by detailing the emergent research themes and gaps in the current body of knowledge. These themes and gaps have been discussed and used as a foundation for detailing potential avenues that may be addressed by future research (see Table 2 ).

The review included several iterative rounds of open and axial coding ( Corbin and Strauss, 2014 ) of the articles' contents. First, two of the authors independently reviewed all the articles and made several notes regarding the focal content of each (cf. Paliogiannis et al. , 2019 ). After the first round of reviews, they gave titles to these notes to enable them to formulate a set of open codes. Thereafter, they compared their notes and discussed their respective open codes to reach a consensus. The open codes that were assigned included “gender difference,” “age difference,” “theoretical lens,” “methods of study,” “individual traits,” “partner-oriented factors,” “relational maintenance,” “relational outcomes” (positive and negative), “content sharing” and “SMP use.”

After agreeing on the final set of open codes, the two authors individually studied the similarities and differences in their content and the reviewed articles to enable them to formulate a preliminary set of axial codes representing the key themes emerging from the reviewed literature. The authors met to discuss and agree on the final axial codes. These codes pertained to “platform features,” “sociodemographic differences,” “individual-related antecedents,” “partner-related antecedents,” “relationship-related factors,” “consequences,” “theoretical grounding of the concept” and “methodology adopted.” After the axial coding, inter-coder reliability was assessed using the Kappa statistic ( Landis and Koch, 1977 ). The Kappa was 0.84, suggesting that the coding was consistent and that inter-coder reliability was sufficient.

Once the axial coding was completed, the themes that emerged from the coding were analyzed to identify the gaps in the current knowledge and propose specific questions that could be addressed by future scholars to advance research on SoMJ. The appropriateness of the themes was assessed and discussed by all three authors, as well as by an expert panel consisting of three professors and one researcher who had expertise in the dark side of social media. The panelists suggested that minor modifications be made to the derived future research avenues, and this was subsequently done. The following sections present each of the four themes identified in the review.

4.1 Theoretical and methodological grounding of the SoMJ concept

The concept of jealousy in the context of SMPs has primarily been relegated to the characterization of Facebook jealousy, as proposed by Muise et al. (2009) . Few recent studies have utilized additional theoretical approaches to examine the association between social media and jealousy; these include White and Mullen's jealousy model ( Carpenter, 2016 ) and the cognitive theory of jealousy ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ). Concurrently, extant literature has witnessed the incorporation of multiple frameworks and theoretical lenses, wherein certain theories have witnessed more usage. For instance, attachment theory ( Bretherton, 1992 ) has been used by Chang (2019) and Fleuriet et al. (2014) , the parental investment theory ( Trivers, 1972 ) has been used by Dunn and Ward (2020) , and the model of relationship investment ( Rusbult, 1980 ) has been used by Drouin et al. (2014) (see Table 1 ). These frameworks are broadly aimed at understanding how individuals form bonds with others, using evaluative measures of relational satisfaction or gender-based differences in their interactions. However, other viewpoints, such as the evolutionary perspective of gender differences ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ) and the uncertainty reduction theory ( Stewart et al. , 2014 ), have also been used sporadically to delineate the differential effect of parameters such as relational satisfaction.

Previous researchers have also considered other theories in an attempt to delineate the influence of individual factors, such as personality, usage motives and goals, on the association between social media and jealousy. Such theories include the uses and gratifications framework ( Dainton and Stokes, 2015 ), five-factor personality model ( Seidman, 2019 ), self-selection hypothesis ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ), goal cognition theory ( Chang, 2019 ), belongingness/connection framework ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ) and the theory of motivated information management ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). Recent studies have begun to use the general theory of addiction to investigate the association between jealousy and the excessive use of SMPs ( Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ). For instance, Seidman et al. (2019) examined the association between social media and jealousy in the context of needs that may encourage pathological SMP use, such as the need for popularity.

In terms of research design and methodology, few studies in the SLR pool have included dyadic forms of investigation (e.g., Marshall et al. , 2013 ), which may assist in understanding the connotations of this association from a partner's perspective through frameworks such as the actor–partner interdependence model ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ). Further, the majority of the current knowledge in this field has been derived from survey and experiment-based research designs (see Table 1 ), which may be inherently subject to limitations, such as social desirability bias ( Halpern et al. , 2017 ) and inability to establish causal effect ( Chang, 2019 ).

4.2 Sociodemographic differences

The extant literature presents evidence of demographic differences in the evaluation of social media content; the use of SMP information for relationship initiation ( van Ouytsel et al. , 2016 ); and the subsequently evoked negative emotions, such as jealousy ( Altakhaineh and Alnamer, 2018 ). Prior research has examined the influence of gender ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ; Dunn and Billett, 2018 ), age ( Altakhaineh and Alnamer, 2018 ; Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ) and culture ( Zandbergen and Brown, 2015 ) on an individual's experience of SoMJ. Sociodemographic factors present an interesting area of inquiry because they can potentially influence the mechanisms through which SoMJ may develop or increase in intensity ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ).

The divergence in prior knowledge on SoMJ is especially evident in terms of gender-based differences. Studies conducted by Baker and Carreño (2016) and Lucero et al. (2014) suggest that there is a distinct difference in the effect of social media cues on male and female experiences of jealousy. Similarly, Demirtaş-Madran (2018) discuss that gender differences may exist with regard to the type of jealousy experienced – that is, emotional or sexual – due to social media-associated cues but found none in terms of the level of jealousy experienced. This finding partially supports the additional research that found that males may show a higher response toward perceived sexual jealousy. In contrast, higher jealousy levels are evoked in women who perceive emotional infidelity in their partners' social media activities ( Dunn and Billett, 2018 ). Similarly, gender differences have been posited in terms of the intensity of experienced jealousy ( Marshall et al. , 2013 ), type of negative emotion felt by women vis-à-vis men ( Muscanell et al. , 2013 ), and behavioral response to the experienced emotion, for example–partner monitoring ( Muise et al. , 2014 ).

The literature reviewed for the SLR also suggests that age, stage of individual development, level of immersive exposure to social media communication patterns, and norms may create individual differences in SMP use. This may, in turn, affect the determination of the threshold criteria for determining the perception of cyber abuse, social media surveillance, or partner monitoring ( Baker and Carreño, 2016 ). For instance, Altakhaineh and Alnamer (2018) found that older users may not be well versed in the different multimodal affordances of social media, which could explain their differing thresholds for defining inappropriate social media behavior. Additionally, van Ouytsel et al. (2016) pointed out differences between adults' and adolescents' use of SMP content for relationship initiation through the findings of their study.

Culture and ethnicity are important factors that may explain individual differences in social media use and the subsequent experience of jealousy. According to Demirtaş-Madran (2018) , culture may be a universal influence with respect to jealousy. Zandbergen and Brown (2015) found that culture exerted a significant influence on jealousy experienced due to sexual infidelity and its form of expression. Similarly, Dijkstra et al. (2013) suggested the potential influence of societal norms on behavioral responses evoked by jealousy, such as higher aggression and violence by males. The SLR suggests that the extant knowledge rests primarily on the study of Caucasian respondents (e.g., Seidman, 2019 ; Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). Ethnic considerations may influence use patterns of Internet and Communication Technology (ICT, Rueda et al. , 2015 ) and dynamics of a relationship ( Demirtaş-Madran 2018 ), such as intimate partner violence, social media surveillance or romantic gestures. The fact that the evocation of jealousy is a process that may have cultural and ethnic distinctions, e.g. in of retroactive jealousy ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ), may explain evident differences in prior findings.

4.3 Antecedents

The prior literature has identified multiple factors that may affect the origin, intensity, and impact of SoMJ on an individual. These factors, referred to as antecedents of SoMJ, are delineated into four dimensions: the individual, his or her partner, relationship, and platform affordances.

4.3.1 Individuals

Individual factors that may affect the level and intensity of SoMJ have been the most extensively investigated antecedents in this domain. Prior research on these antecedents has pertained primarily to an individual's attachment orientation, personality, needs, motives and engagement with specific social media activities. Individuals may be driven to use SMPs to fulfill different needs, which may include the need for popularity ( Utz et al. , 2015 ), idealized self-presentation ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ) and motive/need to belong ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ; Chang, 2019 ). These needs may be further complemented by the goals and motives that drive individuals to engage with social media. Such motives may be related to purposes such as information seeking prior to initiating a relationship ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ; van Ouytsel et al. , 2016 ) or relational maintenance ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ; van Ouytsel et al. , 2016 ). Holmgren and Coyne (2017) suggest that the self-regulation of SMP use and the needs fulfilled through social media may enact a mediating effect on psycho-social and relational outcomes. This effect may occur due to the jealousy induced by engaging in comparisons with peers over SMPs and allied conflicts ( Halpern et al. , 2017 ; Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ). Furthermore, comparisons may also be made about the previous romantic partners of an individual, for example through digital remnants ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ) and even strangers.

Prior research indicates that an individual's attachment style and orientation may also impact the association between social media and induced jealousy ( Fleuriet et al. , 2014 ; Muise et al. , 2014 ; Nitzburg and Farber, 2013 ). Attachment orientation pertains to an individual's propensity to form and maintain close romantic bonds along the dimensions of anxiety and avoidance ( Chang, 2019 ; Rus and Tiemensma, 2017 ). An individual's attachment style may determine his or her engagement with social media activities ( Nitzburg and Farber, 2013 ), such as checking a partner's profile ( Marshall et al. , 2013 ). Muise et al. (2014) posited that attachment orientation might be enacted differently for individuals as a mechanism of the effect that induces jealousy. Nitzburg and Farber (2013) found that highly anxious or disorganized individuals may inculcate psychological distance into their relationships while attempting to balance emotions and interpersonal conflicts. Marshall et al. (2013) found that individuals with anxious attachment experience more chronic jealousy than those with avoidance attachment. According to Nitzburg and Farber (2013) , an anxious individual may turn to social media to avoid direct interactions with his or her partner but may also face additional exertion in coping with the ambiguous information presented on social media about the partner's activities. Conversely, Marshall et al. (2013) found that individuals with an avoidant attachment may preclude checking their partners' social media. Similarly, Chang (2019) posited that anxious attachment might engender a sense of ambivalence toward partners or relationships. Such ambivalence or uncertainty may partially contribute to individuals' experiences of negative emotions, which may cumulatively influence their experiences of jealousy ( Fleuriet et al. , 2014 ).

Studies have suggested that an individual's experienced levels of jealousy and associated negative emotions may be influenced by their personality traits ( Seidman, 2019 ). Seidman (2019) found that neuroticism influenced Facebook-induced jealousy significantly but also suggested that personality may exert only a limited influence on its inception and experience. Moyano et al. (2017) found that lower levels of self-esteem and a higher individual tendency toward jealousy influence SoMJ and the possible conflict resolution strategies employed to contend with the experience. Furthermore, neuroticism ( Marshall et al. , 2013 ), along with other personality traits, such as extraversion and openness, may influence individuals' engagement with partner surveillance ( Seidman, 2019 ; Muise et al. , 2009 ). These traits may also affect individuals' experiences of other Facebook-related conflicts ( Seidman, 2019 ; Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ), such as intrusion related to partners' social media activity ( González-Rivera and Hernández-Gato, 2019 ).

4.3.2 Partners

Few studies in the SLR pool have entailed a dyadic examination of the investigated associations ( Rueda et al. , 2015 ; Muise et al. , 2014 ; Marshall et al. , 2013 ). Daspe et al. (2018) found that a partner's social media usage activity, mediated by subsequently induced jealousy, may influence the perpetration of intimate partner violence as an outcome similarly for men and women. These results contradict those of an earlier study conducted by Muise et al. (2014) , who found that women engaged in a greater degree of partner surveillance/monitoring in response to Facebook jealousy. Similarly, Marshall et al. (2013) posited that individuals' monitoring of their partners' social media activities is influenced by perceivably low levels of global commitment, daily jealousy, and a high degree of global love demonstrated by the partners. Examining the influence of technology-mediated communication platforms on the relationships of romantically partnered adolescents, Rueda et al. (2015) found that jealousy and mistrust were predominantly associated with relationships wherein multiple public (e.g., Facebook) or private (e.g., text messaging) technological platforms were used for dyadic and extra-dyadic communication. Rueda et al. (2015) posited that negative emotions, such as mistrust, may be reciprocally related to technology-enabled flirtatious behavior, which may be further escalated by the absence of tonality in such communication. This supposition synchronously supports Muise et al. 's (2009) proposition regarding the possibly cyclical nature of the relationship between social media use and induced jealousy. This may be explained by individuals' expectations of instantaneous, dyadic reciprocity of communication through technological platforms, especially social media ( Rueda et al. , 2015 ).

4.3.3 Relationship

The rapid proliferation of social media as a tool for routine or daily communication has influenced individuals' expectations of their partners, selves, and relationships ( Zandbergen and Brown, 2015 ). Nongpong and Charoensukmongkol (2016) posited that the excessive use of social media can impact different parameters of a relationship, such as perceived levels of caring, jealousy, and loneliness. Dainton and Stokes (2015) suggested that coupled with openness and positivity, individuals' motives for using social media, such as Facebook, could predict their reported levels of jealousy. Consequently, researchers have investigated relational parameters, such as commitment ( Drouin et al. , 2014 ), trust ( Carpenter, 2016 ; Macapagal et al. , 2016 ), infidelity ( Dunn and Billett, 2018 ) and length of relationship ( Demirtaş-Madran, 2018 ), in the context of social media and jealousy.

As a relational parameter, trust has been studied extensively in the context of social media and romantic relationships ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ; Carpenter, 2016 ; Macapagal et al. , 2016 ). Muise et al. (2009) found that lower levels of trust can increase individuals' experiences of SoMJ. In contrast, Iqbal and Jami (2019) contended that trust is a protective factor for romantic relationships, wherein it could act as a predictor of Facebook jealousy. This effect may be explained by the findings of Macapagal et al. (2016) , who suggested that social media use may lead to reduced trust between partners, as it may negatively affect individuals' focus on the relationship itself. According to Frampton and Fox (2018) , SMPs may allow individuals to digitally fact-check information pertaining to their partners' prior relationships. Their findings complement those of van Ouytsel et al. (2016) , who examined the impact of social media on the different stages of a relationship and found that individuals consider it to be a significant platform for seeking information about current or potential partners.

Marshall et al. (2013) found distinct differences in the levels of SoMJ experienced by individuals with low commitment to the relationship and low self-esteem. Drouin et al. (2014) found that lower relational commitment and attachment anxiety, mediated by Facebook jealousy, can also influence individuals' solicitation of romantic interests through social media. According to Billedo et al. (2015) , SMPs allow individuals, especially those engaged in geographically distant relationships, to display behaviors that can express commitment and loyalty, thereby assisting in relational maintenance. Seidman (2019) suggested that relational commitment may be influenced by a couple's display of affection on SMPs, such as Facebook. Such a display may also influence relationship satisfaction. Additionally, Seidman et al. (2019) found that the existence of a balance between the excessive public display of affection and private communication can improve individuals' perceptions of relational satisfaction, closeness, and security due to lower levels of experienced jealousy. However, Demirtaş-Madran (2018) found no impact of relationship length or satisfaction on Facebook jealousy, thereby suggesting that a certain divergence may exist in the emergence of these associations based on contextual, individual and/or situational factors.

4.3.4 Rivals

Our review suggests that jealousy has been primarily examined as a dyadic phenomenon, with attention being focused on the behavior of individuals who are involved in romantic relationships (e.g., Nongpong and Charoensukmongkol, 2016 ; Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ; Marshall et al. , 2013 ). Few studies have examined the role of potential or actual rivals in evoking jealousy among the studied respondents ( Dunn and Ward, 2020 ; Dunn and Billett, 2018 ; Carpenter, 2016 ). The under-investigated role of rivals, in terms of their pursuant actions, communications, and the subsequent impact on SoMJ evocation, represents a distinct lacuna in the extant knowledge.

4.3.5 Platform affordances

The affordances and features of SMPs, as well as their impact on SoMJ, have been methodically examined. For instance, prior research has associated social media use and intensity with the potential to evoke jealous responses ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ; Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ; Nongpong and Charoensukmongkol, 2016 ; Fox and Moreland, 2015 ). Social media content (e.g., Dunn and Billet, 2018 ) and information (e.g., Frampton and Fox, 2018 ) have also been linked to feelings of intrusiveness, dissatisfaction and jealousy ( Fox and Moreland, 2015 ; Elphinston and Noller, 2011 ; Mod, 2010 ). For instance, Hudson et al. (2015) and van Ouytsel et al. (2016) suggest that the emoticons used by individuals in extra-dyadic communication acted as contextual cues that had a significant influence on their partners' experiences of jealousy.

Certain social media activities have also been found to impact individuals' assessments of their relational quality and satisfaction ( van Ouytsel et al. , 2016 ). However, the extant research on such activities offers a divergent view of their effects. For instance, it has been suggested that displaying one's relationship status on Facebook is akin to wearing a “digital wedding ring” ( Orosz et al. , 2015 ), which may deter rivals ( Mod, 2010 ). Conversely, other studies have suggested that online relationship statuses may be considered nonsignificant and even potentially disruptive due to their potential to induce envy among peers ( van Ouytsel et al. , 2016 ). According to Drouin et al. (2014) , individuals may also experience jealousy because of current or potential additions to their partners' friend lists on social media. van Ouytsel et al. (2016) suggested that individuals may even attempt to exert control over their partners' addition and removal of contacts from SMPs to assimilate their own feelings of uncertainty and jealousy.

Scholars have investigated the relationship between jealousy and content-sharing activities, such as dyadic photo sharing and posting of selfies, on social media. Halpern et al. (2017) posited that individuals who share a high number of selfies may not only evoke jealousy in their partners but may also face conflicts due to their continual need for idealized self-presentation and subsequent distraction from offline issues and personas. Seidman (2019) suggested that individuals who are driven by distinctive personality traits, such as neuroticism and conscientiousness, may post dyadic photographs as a measure of affection for their partners. According to van Ouytsel et al. (2016) , dyadic photographs offer a casual and subtle indicator of individuals' relationships to their peers but may not be viewed by parents or other family members as a romantic overture. While dyadic photographs may allow couples to publicly display their unity ( Seidman et al. , 2019 ), they may also induce retrospective jealousy aimed at current partners or their previous relationships, as such photographs may present an idealization of the couples and/or relationships ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). Furthermore, individuals may be affected by the privacy-protection settings that their partners have adopted to manage communication with extra-dyadic individuals. For instance, a study by Muscanell et al. (2013) found the photo-privacy settings elicited disgust among the respondents; however, prior researchers seem not to have linked this emotion to jealousy. This suggests that the concept of SoMJ may be more subtly evolved than its current conceptualization and may even be a new form of expressing traditional romantic jealousy ( Moyano et al. , 2017 ).

4.4 Consequences

Prior research has investigated a multitude of consequences of SoMJ that relate to individuals' emotional and behavioral responses. Based on the review, we posit that these consequences may be broadly categorized as relational and psychological. Regarding the psychological effect, prior research has indicated that individuals who are afflicted by SoMJ could experience negative emotions ( Fleuriet et al. , 2014 ), such as depression ( Holmgren and Coyne, 2017 ) and feelings of inferiority ( Altakhaineh and Alnamer, 2018 ). According to Fox and Moreland (2015) , such emotions may be amplified due to an individual's propensity to engage in social comparisons. Furthermore, Dunn and Billett (2018) found that evolutionary psychology can be a foundation for understanding the direction in which such negative emotions may be vented. For instance, Holmgren and Coyne (2017) found that in a jealousy-inducing scenario, an individual's direction of comparison may affect the intensity of his or her subsequently experienced depression.

With respect to relational consequences, the review suggests that SoMJ presents a duality of connotations, which may be either positive or negative.

4.4.1 Positive connotations

Jealousy has been found to influence individuals' propensity to monitor and share passwords with their partners. This is especially prevalent among individuals with higher levels of exposure to social media and technologically mediated communications. The review suggests that such activities may be seen as coping or relational maintenance strategies ( Stewart et al. , 2014 ) to counteract SoMJ. They may be enacted to maintain relationship satisfaction and/ or avoid miscommunication, distrust, and jealousy between partners ( Bevan, 2018 ; Baker and Carreño, 2016 ; Dainton and Stokes, 2015 ; Lucero et al. , 2014 ). Furthermore, SoMJ may lead individuals to engage in dialogue with their partners regarding jealousy-inducing content or activities ( Carpenter, 2016 ; Cohen et al. , 2014 ). Such responses imply positive connotations for resolving conflicts ( Moyano et al. , 2017 ) and maintaining relational stability ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). They may also affect individuals' perceptions of their partners' happiness ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ), as well as their relational ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ) and marital satisfaction ( Iqbal and Jami, 2019 ).

4.4.2 Negative connotations

SoMJ has been implicated in encouraging individuals to engage in negative behaviors, such as harassment ( Rueda et al. , 2015 ) and cyber abuse ( Lucero et al. , 2014 ). For example, studies have found that high levels of Facebook jealousy may lead to higher incidents of intimate partner violence ( Daspe et al. , 2018 ). Coupled with a perceived lack of caring, such jealousy may even induce individuals to terminate their relationships ( Nongpong and Charoensukmongkol, 2016 ). Studies have also implied that the online effects of SoMJ can potentially translate into offline violent behaviors, such as stalking ( Baker and Carreño, 2016 ) and physical abuse ( Brem et al. , 2015 ).

5. RQ3 . Gaps and avenues for future research

We identified theme-specific gaps in the current knowledge and correlated avenues for advancing future research; these are detailed in the following sections. The derived information was utilized to propose a comprehensive framework for guiding scholars' efforts to drive future research on SoMJ by focusing attention on methodological advancements and the less investigated associations of SoMJ.

5.1 Theoretical and methodological grounding

Regarding theoretical foundations, we posit that the majority of SoMJ research has drawn from the field of psychology and there is a gap in introspecting SoMJ from the perspectives of other allied fields, such as social behavior, information systems science and communication studies. For instance, scholars may benefit from understanding how the nature and interactivity of content posted on SMPs contribute to the development of SoMJ. Scholars may utilize theories such as media richness theory ( Daft and Lengel, 1983 ) and interactivity theory ( Voorveld et al. , 2013 ) for this purpose. Further, we argue that the conceptualization of SoMJ may benefit from its examination in light of other correlates of the dark side of social media use, such as trolling ( Baccarella et al. , 2018 ) and the fear of missing out ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). Thus, scholars may also adopt recently developed theories on social media research, such as the honeycomb framework of social media ( Baccarella et al. , 2018 ; Talwar et al. , 2020b ).

How can theories from domains of information systems science and communication studies contribute to advancing knowledge of SoMJ as a concept?

Would the adoption of more objective, observational, and longitudinal methodological approaches make a significant contribution to improving our understanding of SoMJ as a concept?

5.2 Sociodemographic differences

In terms of the limitations of prior research, this review suggests a limited examination of the associations between SoMJ, age, culture, and ethnicity. In comparison, prior research has found significant differences between males vis-à-vis females with respect to SoMJ experiences. However, future researchers may extend the current scope of knowledge regarding the influence of gender on SoMJ by examining whether males and females experience different intensities of emotions associated with jealousy, such as anger or sadness. This could also assist in refining the conceptualization of SoMJ as a distinct phenomenon.

It is difficult to present generalizations regarding age-related differences with respect to SoMJ because the extant literature has focused primarily on young or emerging adults (aged 18–29 years; see Table 1 ). Future research may focus on understanding this phenomenon across different age groups, such as adolescent, adult, and mature SMP users. For instance, studies could be directed toward explicating potential differences in the acceptable thresholds for SMP use behavior for adolescents, young adults, and adults. Future research may also be geared toward understanding the association between SMP use and the experience of platonic forms of SoMJ directed against peers or family members. Scholars may also attempt to use the concept of chronemics ( Fleuriet et al. , 2014 ) to understand whether SoMJ is associated with time spent by different age groups on various activities, such as photo sharing or surveilling partners' activities.

How do different age- and gender-based cohorts experience the various emotions associated with SoMJ?

How do different age-based cohorts define the acceptability thresholds for social media behavior that may induce jealousy?

How are platonic forms of SoMJ induced among different age groups?

How do cultural and ethnic parameters, such as personal values, affect the factors associated with social media use and induced jealousy?

5.3 The antecedents of SoMJ

Distinct gaps can be delineated in the extant body of knowledge in terms of the antecedents of SoMJ, which are discussed below.

5.3.1 Individuals

How do an individual's personality traits affect the relational maintenance strategies that he or she may adopt to resolve SoMJ?

How do an individual's goals and motives for SMP use influence his or her experience of SoMJ?

How strongly does past experience influence an individual's experience with jealousy in a current relationship?

5.3.2 Partners

Do the personality traits of both individuals in a relationship interact in any way to influence their experiences of SoMJ?

What, if any, are the differences in how both partners in the relationship respond to SoMJ?

How do partners react behaviorally and/or emotionally to their significant others' experiences of SoMJ?

How does interpersonal communication between an individual and his or her partner impact the conflict resolution or coping mechanisms that are adopted as a behavioral response to SoMJ?

5.3.3 Rivals

How do the actions of the perceived rival(s) influence SoMJ and its outcomes?

What are the individual's behavioral and emotional responses to his or her perceived SMP-based rivals?

5.3.4 Relationship

A relatively less investigated relational parameter is infidelity and its effect on SoMJ. Researchers have posited that a link exists between individuals' past experiences of infidelity and jealousy induced by the potential threat of extra-dyadic infidelity as a result of their partners' social media use ( Seidman, 2019 ; Utz et al. , 2015 ; Zandbergen and Brown, 2015 ; Clayton et al. , 2013 ). Nonetheless, few empirical investigations into these associations have been undertaken. For instance, Zandbergen and Brown (2015) found that culture and gender were potential predictors of an individual's reported jealousy due to sexual and emotional infidelity on social media, respectively. Similarly, Dunn and Billett (2018) found that infidelity affected individuals' reported distress and jealousy dissimilarly for males and females. This dissimilarity was also affected by the direction of social media communication. Males reported a higher level of distress upon discovering messages sent by their partners to rivals that indicated sexual infidelity compared to females who indicated a higher level of distress in response to messages received by their partners (from female rivals) than those sent by their (male) partners ( Dunn and Billett, 2018 ).

Additionally, prior studies have suggested that relational expectations may differ between age or culture-based cohorts, which may translate into different thresholds for acceptable norms of relational maintenance behavior on social media. For instance, Lucero et al. (2014) found that young adults considered password sharing and monitoring as a sign of trust and as a protective measure against infidelity. Similarly, Bevan (2018) suggested that password sharing was a multidimensional construct with the potential to trigger both SoMJ and relational satisfaction. Rueda et al. (2015) suggested that such behaviors require further investigation to understand how they may encourage the formation of trust between partners.

However, Demirtaş-Madran (2018) posited that there is still a limited understanding of how relational parameters, such as satisfaction, may interact with forms of SoMJ, such as Facebook jealousy.

How does social media-related infidelity in previous/current relationships impact an individual's experience of SoMJ and his or her future social media usage?

How do an individual's sexual orientation and type of relationship influence SoMJ and the associated thresholds of acceptable social media behavior?

What is the impact of relational commitment on evoked emotions, such as anger or sadness, when an individual is confronted with jealousy-inducing social media activities?

Is there a positive influence of newer forms of potential dyadic social media activities, such as online gaming, on tempering SoMJ?

5.3.5 Platform affordances

Although the SLR suggests that 68.9% of the reviewed articles considered Facebook as the platform for investigating SoMJ (see Table 1 ), jealousy may also be experienced by the users of other SMPs (e.g., Instagram or Snapchat). Thus, we argue for the need to reexamine SoMJ from a more generalized and holistic perspective. For instance, future research may examine the forms of emergent emotions associated with jealousy across other platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, to develop a more refined understanding of SoMJ. We elucidate a significant gap in addressing how individuals may perceive flirtatious behavior on SMPs. Thus far, research has mainly concentrated on content such as emoticons ( Hudson et al. , 2015 ) and photographs ( Frampton and Fox, 2018 ). We argue for the need to delineate Internet or social media-oriented communication as a distinct linguistic form and to investigate other contextual, jealousy-inducing cues in this environment.

Additionally, despite the extensive investigation of features of SMPs and their impact on inducing jealousy, the extant literature in this field has focused primarily on Facebook as a platform. A limited number of studies have investigated the potentially jealousy-inducing effect of other SMPs, such as Snapchat ( Dunn and Ward, 2020 ; Utz et al. , 2015 ), or considered the impact of Internet and ICT platforms from a holistic perspective ( Rueda et al. , 2015 ; Dijkstra et al. , 2013 ). These studies have indicated differential usage motives, jealousy-inducing content, and the intensity of induced jealousy for different SMPs ( Dunn and Billett, 2018 ; Utz et al. , 2015 ). The supposition that SMP affordances may evoke SoMJ is supported by the study of Cohen et al. (2014) , which found perceived intimacy or secrecy of a message (message exclusivity) to influence negative emotions and the potential for creating conflict.

How, if at all, does SoMJ emerge across different SMPs, such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat?

How do contextual or linguistic cues differ in terms of the potentially flirtatious behavior exhibited on SMPs vis-à-vis offline interaction?

How do different platform affordances, such as content or activities, affect the intensity or level of SoMJ and the associated emotions experienced by two romantically engaged individuals?

5.4 The consequences of SoMJ

The extant knowledge is limited regarding the examination of how the emotions associated with SoMJ, such as anger, sadness and betrayal, may be directed at the self, partner, or rival. There is a need to further investigate the direction and intensity of the emotions that are felt by individuals experiencing SoMJ. Such an understanding may assist researchers in elucidating the mechanism of effect through which jealousy may affect the psychological state of the partner and/or rival. However, the review also suggests that with regard to married (or engaged) individuals, the association between social media and jealousy is under-researched. In fact, previous studies have considered relationship length as a control variable ( Seidman, 2019 ; Seidman et al. , 2019 ; Halpern et al. , 2017 ), and relatively few studies have investigated commitment as a predictor ( Drouin et al. , 2014 ; Marshall et al. , 2013 ). We posit the need for a more detailed assessment of the intensity and length of commitment with regards to SoMJ. For instance, the influence of relationship length and commitment on SoMJ may be explored for individuals who are married, engaged, or in a long-term civil union.

Based on the discussions of the negative connotations of SoMJ, we argue that researchers need to understand the prevalence of such negative effects in both online and offline contexts. We also posit the need to understand the mechanisms that individuals use to cope with such negative effects, especially in the cases in which their emotions may trigger aggressive or violent responses. Additionally, Frampton and Fox (2018) discussed the influence of retrospective jealousy on individuals. Based on their findings, we question whether SoMJ may also cause individuals to showcase negative behaviors toward their previous partners. Further, the SLR suggests a distinct gap in the current knowledge regarding the continual impact, if any, of jealousy on individual behavior after the dissolution of a relationship. It may be interesting to understand whether such impacts are connected to other correlates of the dark side of social media, such as malicious gossiping, trolling, and cyberstalking. The question of whether individuals' personal values influence their actions may also be significant.

What is the mechanism of effect through which the negative emotions (level and intensity) associated with SoMJ may be directed toward the self, partners, and perceived (or actual) rivals?

How do the length and status of relational commitment affect the experience of SoMJ among individuals who are married, engaged or dating casually?

What is the prevalent influence of SoMJ on offline negative behaviors, such as monitoring or stalking?

How does SoMJ influence an individual's post-relationship dissolution behavioral response?

How, if at all, do SMPs affect an individual's experience of platonic forms (familial and peer) of jealousy?

5.5 The SoMJ framework: a theoretical comprehension

The SLR highlights the complex nature of the relationships governing the concept of SoMJ, which transcends the boundaries and intricacies of offline relationships among individuals to encompass the influence of SMP affordances and perceived rivals in the digital environment. Based on the gaps and future agendas detailed in the previous sections, we propose the SoMJ framework ( Figure 3 ), which emphasizes the need to adopt more sophisticated research approaches to advance conceptual knowledge of SoMJ and investigate the hitherto under-explored associations of SoMJ with variables related to (1) SMPs, (2) incumbent actors (the individual, partner and rival) and (3) relational parameters.

Conceptual advancement is the foremost SoMJ-related issue that researchers need to address. It would be beneficial to explore whether SoMJ is a new form of jealousy that has been relegated to the SMP environs or a corollary to relational activities, such as partner monitoring. The SLR indicates the need to explore the emotional components of SoMJ and its correlation with non-romantic forms of jealousy, such as peer and familial jealousy. To resolve the existing inconsistencies in the conceptualization of SoMJ, future research may be directed toward examining whether these forms and components of SoMJ differ from its traditional characterization.

Methodological improvements in conjunction with conceptual advancement are needed to generate more definitive and generalizable insights into SoMJ as a distinct phenomenon. For instance, a larger and more diverse respondent base may be studied to investigate the emergence of SoMJ. In addition, individuals with varied sexual orientations, ages, relational statuses, and cultural backgrounds, should be examined over longer periods to understand how SoMJ emerges and evolves. Researchers may gather objective data through more mixed method–based research designs to garner deeper and more quantitatively verifiable insights into the interactive association between SMPs and SoMJ.

Specific SMP affordances , such as particular linguistic cues or cross-platform features, and their correlations with SoMJ need to be researched. Further, scholars may examine whether and how SoMJ correlates with issues related to the dark side of social media, such as the fear of missing out, cyberstalking, and social comparison. These issues may make individuals more pliable and vulnerable to influence by acontextual or ambiguous content that is shared on SMPs. They should therefore be investigated in the context of SoMJ.

Incumbent actors – that is, the individual, partner and perceived rival – should be examined to explicate their roles in the development and differential experiences of SoMJ. The role of the rival is significantly under-explored in SoMJ research. Scholars may focus on exploring SMP actions or the intensity of pursuit of actual/perceived rivals toward individuals, as well as the emotions directed toward such rivals by individuals and their partners. It is also imperative to examine the issues that may influence an individual's psychological or emotional states, such as usage motives, past experiences and personal values. In addition, researchers should explore whether individuals' experiences of SoMJ are affected by their partners' SMP activities, personalities, or behavioral/emotional responses, and vice versa.

Relational parameters may also be explored by future scholars, especially through dyadic investigations. For example, scholars may benefit from understanding individuals' specific purposes for using SMPs, especially if they are being utilized as tracking or monitoring platforms for relational surveillance. Concurrently, we posit the need to investigate whether relational maintenance behaviors, such as monitoring and interpersonal communication, share a temporally reciprocal or symbiotic relationship ( Carpenter, 2016 ; Muise et al. , 2009 ).

Finally, researchers may benefit from understanding the role of moderator variables in influencing SoMJ associations . Based on the SLR, we posit the potential moderating influence of cultural, ethnic, and sociodemographic factors on the creation and effect of SoMJ. We further urge scholars to investigate other variables that may indirectly affect SoMJ in a moderating or mediating capacity.

6. Conclusions, implications and limitations

This study provides an exhaustive assessment of the areas on which the extant research has focused regarding the association between jealousy and social media. This assessment has been based on three RQs. The aim of the first was to understand the profile of the research on social media and jealousy. This question was answered through a discussion of publication trends, top authors, journals, and the geographic scope of prior studies. The keywords of select studies were then analyzed to understand the focal themes of the research conducted in this field. The second RQ pertained to the delineation of the antecedents and consequences of SoMJ. In response to this question, the emergent themes and the contextual lenses of prior investigations into SoMJ have been explicated, wherein two thematic classifications detailed the antecedents and consequences identified by prior research. Finally, the third research question aimed to understand the gaps in the existing research and to explicate potential agendas that could advance the current understanding of this domain. Specific gaps and future research agendas were then detailed for each identified theme, as summarized in Table 2 . Additionally, these agendas have been used to form an integrated framework that may assist researchers in understanding SoMJ. The findings have significant implications for academicians and clinicians who are engaged in this domain.

6.1 Theoretical implications

This study has five primary implications for the theoretical advancement of research on SoMJ. First, it makes a significant contribution to the assimilation and analysis of the fragmented knowledge regarding the associations of SoMJ that have been empirically investigated in prior research. In presenting a comprehensive overview of the extant literature, this study creates a singular platform for understanding the intellectual structure of SoMJ-related research.

Second, the SLR explicates the multidimensional nature of SoMJ by delineating its association with SMP affordances and a triad of actors (partner, individual and rival). The study further speculates on the possibility of this concept being a correlate of the dark side of social media. It suggests that there is a need to understand SoMJ's associations with other correlates of the dark side of social media that influence individual states and responses in terms of both emotions and behaviors. This could advance the current knowledge of the operational mechanism of effect through which SoMJ impacts the individual psyche.

Third, the SLR draws attention to the current characterization of jealousy in the context of social media. The findings suggest that there is a need to examine the possible platonic and familial forms of jealousy that may also be induced among SMP users. Thus, this study makes a significant contribution by identifying potential avenues to expound upon the conceptual boundaries of SoMJ.

Fourth, by elucidating the extant knowledge gaps, the findings present several subthemes and topics that require further scholarly attention. Future researchers can use these topics and subthemes to construct and validate more advanced frameworks to examine SoMJ holistically. The findings also suggest that there is a need for methodological improvements, and this study can provide researchers with a point of navigation for adopting novel research designs and approaches.

The fifth contribution is the proposed framework, which details the under-investigated associations of SoMJ. This framework provides a foundation to advance knowledge of the mechanism of effect through which SMPs may induce jealousy among users. We underscore the need to incorporate the perspective of linguistics into this field of research as social media communication may have distinctive patterns and connotations of communication.

6.2 Practical implications

This study has four significant implications for the users, designers, and managers of SMPs. The findings may also be valuable for clinicians, such as psychologists, who work with individuals and couples who are dealing with the experiences and consequences of SoMJ. First, an important finding for SMP designers and managers is that SoMJ should not be considered a solely individual-level issue; rather, it is important to scrutinize the role of users' personal social networks in relation to SoMJ. For example, the use of text mining or sentiment analysis of social media activity and shared content can be helpful in identifying individuals who are potentially afflicted by jealousy or its consequences.

Second, as a result of this study, individuals who are engaged in SMP community management (i.e., SMP managers or team members who are engaged with help or safety centers established on SMPs to ensure appropriate communication and platform usage) may gain significant insights into the concept, antecedents, and consequences of SoMJ. Their understanding of SoMJ will allow them to identify and raise awareness about the potential indications of its negative consequences that may be evident in individuals' social media activities. It may also assist community managers and SMP designers in updating user policies and guidelines for the safe usage of SMPs. Such guidelines may act as a deterrent for individuals who are experiencing SoMJ and contemplating behavioral responses that are harmful or even violent toward partners or rivals.

Third, we maintain that an increased understanding of SoMJ may help users identify thresholds for acceptable SMP behavior. The findings can be used to raise awareness regarding the thresholds at which the perceivably harmless antecedents of SoMJ, such as partner monitoring, may transition into potentially harmful consequences, such as cyber abuse. This could serve as a protective measure against the adverse effects of SoMJ.

Finally, our findings provide clinicians with a synthesis of the current state of the art regarding social media and jealousy. The findings will allow clinicians to develop a holistic understanding of SoMJ and its potential correlation with other negative behaviors associated with the dark side of social media, such as trolling, stalking, and the fear of missing out. Consequently, this will allow clinicians to develop interventions to educate the public about the myriad ways in which SMPs and users' behaviors may affect their social and familial relationships. More specifically, clinicians will also be better equipped to develop specific interventions for managing the effects of technology – especially social media – on individuals' intimate and romantic relationships. This could, in turn, raise targeted awareness in the familial and social groups of an individual, thereby helping to identify the emergence of SoMJ in the individual's life or helping him or her to cope with its negative effects.

6.3 Limitations and future work

This study was limited by certain methodological choices. First, we focused solely on assimilating empirical knowledge related to social media and jealousy and excluded articles published as conceptual and narrative reviews. Second, to keep the scope of the review manageable, we excluded any conference publications and theses, which may have limited the thematic contexts, antecedents and consequences identified during this review. Third, we focused on the literature available in the Scopus, WoS, PubMed and PsycINFO databases up to December 2019, excluding studies that may have been published since January 2020. Studies published in other databases, such as ProQuest and EBSCO, were also excluded. Finally, we excluded trade journals and core medical journals that may have published articles related to social media and jealousy. Nonetheless, despite these limitations, the study makes a significant stride in advancing the theoretical understanding of SoMJ as a phenomenon. Future scholars may improve the scope of this SLR by reviewing other databases, such as EBSCO, and other forms of publications, such as conceptual or review articles, theses, and monographs, using different or more inclusive search terms. Further, new studies, especially those published in trade journals, and other fields of study, such as psychiatry, may be reviewed to update the reported research profile and thematic trends.

SLR process and protocols

Annual publication trends

Social media-induced jealousy (SoMJ) framework

Comprehensive information on reviewed articles

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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

The evolutionary psychology of envy and jealousy.

• 1 Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
• 2 Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

The old dogma has always been that the most complex aspects of human emotions are driven by culture; Germans and English are thought to be straight-laced whereas Italians and Indians are effusive. Yet in the last two decades there has been a growing realization that even though culture plays a major role in the final expression of human nature, there must be a basic scaffolding specified by genes. While this is recognized to be true for simple emotions like anger, fear, and joy, the relevance of evolutionary arguments for more complex nuances of emotion have been inadequately explored. In this paper, we consider envy or jealousy as an example; the feeling evoked when someone is better off than you. Our approach is broadly consistent with traditional evolutionary psychology (EP) approaches, but takes it further by exploring the complexity and functional logic of the emotion – and the precise social triggers that elicit them – by using deliberately farfetched, and contrived “thought experiments” that the subject is asked to participate in. When common sense (e.g., we should be jealous of Bill Gates – not of our slightly richer neighbor) appears to contradict observed behavior (i.e., we are more envious of our neighbor) the paradox can often be resolved by evolutionary considerations which h predict the latter. Many – but not all – EP approaches fail because evolution and common sense do not make contradictory predictions. Finally, we briefly raise the possibility that gaining deeper insight into the evolutionary origins of certain undesirable emotions or behaviors can help shake them off, and may therefore have therapeutic utility. Such an approach would complement current therapies (such as cognitive behavior therapies, psychoanalysis, psychopharmacologies, and hypnotherapy), rather than negate them.

Human emotions are very poorly understood even though there is a long venerable tradition of research pertaining to them, going all the way back to Darwin’s “Expression of Emotions in Animals and Men” ( Darwin, 1872 ; on emotions see also Ekman and Friesen, 1971 ; Izard, 1977 ; Wierzbicka, 1986 ; Russell, 1994 ; Oatley and Jenkins, 1996 ; Fredrickson, 1998 ; Lewis, 2000 ; Panksepp and Biven, 2012 ). This is in stark contrast to research on such arcane topics as – say, apparent motion perception which has been studied in excruciating – sometimes pointless – detail. In truth our “common sense” understanding of emotions is probably closer to the mark than the insights offered by specialists working on the subject (just read a good Jane Austen novel).

One problem is that physiologists and psychologists who study emotions do not look at them enough from an evolutionary standpoint (for exceptions, see Nesse, 1990 ; Ekman and Davidson, 1994 ; Johnston, 1999 ; Cosmides and Tooby, 2000 ; Tooby and Cosmides, 2008 ). This is unfortunate because as Dobzhansky famously said, “Nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution.” This may seem obvious but even though people often pay lip-service to it, it is an attitude that has yet to permeate mainstream neurology and psychology [as championed eloquently by Tooby and Cosmides (1990) ].

In evolutionary terms, emotions are adaptive responses to the environment that increase my chances of survival. But unlike simple adaptations – say the sensation of pain when my hand is pocked with a hot rod motivating me to withdraw it – emotions are much more complex. They orchestrate a more organized response. If I suspect a tiger is nearby, a fight/flight reaction (mediated by limbic structures) will activate several aspects of my physiology and cognition, each recursively feeding on the other – influencing my behavior (e.g., Nesse and Ellsworth, 2009 ).

It is of course possible to swing to the other extreme and assume that every little quirk of human behavior must have a module devoted to it that has direct survival value that was honed by natural selection; a view perpetuated by media accounts of evolutionary psychology (EP) (although the main proponents of this approach are usually careful to avoid such pitfalls, including David Buss, Donald Symons, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides, Melvin Connor, Christine Harris, and Steven Pinker). There are four pitfalls to watch out for in taking this approach: (1) Not everything is adaptive; many quirks of mind may be incidental byproducts or atavistic remnants of things that were once useful (the psychological equivalent of the vermiform appendix). (2) The second pitfall is that many so-called universal psychological traits may be learned; people may have “converged” on the same solution to similar environmental challenges; e.g., cooking is almost universal but we do not postulate a cooking-module in the brain hardwired through natural selection. It was probably based on the accidental discovery of game roasted by forest fires. (3) Both the observed trait and its explanation are banal; obvious even to your grandmother. For example, men like young women with clear skin and big breasts because they are more fertile; so the genes that predispose to such preference would multiply. Is there anyone who doesn’t know this? (4) When the explanation is not banal then it is often very difficult – almost impossible – to test experimentally or refute. It fails to fulfill the falsifiability criterion of Popper. A good example is the satirical theory one of us proposed to account for why “gentlemen prefer blondes” ( Ramachandran, 1998 ), suggesting that they do so because it allows them to detect early signs of parasitic infestation and aging – both which reduce fertility. In addition, reciprocity of sexual interest is more obvious in blondes because of the dilatation of dark pupils against a pale iris; as is the pink flush of orgasm in a light skin – which lowers the chances of cuckoldry and increases likelihood of implantation. (Blushing, too, is more obvious in blondes who in effect is sending an involuntary “truth in advertising” signal conveying that she can’t cucold with impunity without the blush of embarrassment giving her away.) This account was taken seriously by some members of the EP community; indeed, we concede the possibility that what began as a satire may have more than a grain of truth in it! An even more far-fetched theory was proposed jocularly by my colleague JA Deutsch (personal communication). Deutsch suggests that the reason women experience nausea and vomiting early in pregnancy is because “the odor of vomitus” would discourage the husband from having sexual intercourse with her. This makes evolutionary sense given the known risk of abortion resulting from intercourse in such cases. As a final example, let us suggest that the reason we flock to aquaria is that our Devonian piscine ancestors were attracted to other fish and we have remnants of this affinity fossilized in our brains. It is easy to see the absurdity of these three examples, but some EP arguments have the same form.

Where EP is on firm ground is when it avoids as many of these pitfalls as possible. Then it becomes fun to explore. The name of the game is to make observations of human psychology that initially seem surprising, counterintuitive, and apparently non-adaptive and then go on to show there might be a hidden evolutionary agenda. This strategy does not necessarily prove the theory but it makes it more credible than if the pitfalls had not been avoided. We would like to illustrate this approach by considering the very simple example of jealousy or envy. These two words are used interchangeably in the United States, but in the United Kingdom the former is more often used in a sexual context, the latter in other contexts. In either case the “target” is usually someone who is perceived to be better off in some respect than you or whose access to resources is better than yours. Jealousy also has a possessive component; I want to actually deprive the other person’s resource and claim it as my own. It is a negative emotion. Envy is not quite as negative – it does not have the same sharp edge and it motivates emulation to gain independent access to similar or even better resources. The extreme along the same spectrum would be pure admiration of someone, who, through inborn talent and intense effort, is better off than you. I am envious of my neighbor who got an award from the local mayor, but I admire Francis Crick.

Jealousy is a motive of immense potency. Although you are often consciously aware of being jealous or envious of someone, sometimes the actual reasons for the envy are buried in your unconscious and disguised by rationalizations. Ironically, what you really value in life is more often revealed by asking yourself who you are jealous of rather than asking yourself directly “what do I value.” The latter often taps into what society expects you to value; your “superego” takes over – and you are aware only of what you should want rather than what you really want. Envy and jealousy, on the other hand, kick in as a gut reaction in your emotional/evaluative system long before you become conscious of it.

Introspection is unfashionable in contemporary psychology largely due to the lingering effects of behaviorism. Contrary to this view, we will argue (and demonstrate in this paper) that introspection (if accompanied by cross-validation across other thoughtful subjects) can be a valuable source of insights into the internal logic and evolutionary rationale of certain complex emotions like envy. Obviously, objections can be rightfully raised against the – purely subjective – exercise of introspection, which is why it is imperative to eventually test these conjectures by making counterintuitive predictions that can be empirically falsified (using a rigorous scientific approach). But meanwhile one can have fun speculating on possibilities.

The central argument in this paper is that one can achieve a deeper understanding of emotions by introspective “thought experiments”; asking yourself – and others – which social situation (A or B) would make you more prone to that emotion and what the environmental triggers are. One can then construct meaningful evolutionary scenarios as to why a particular trigger (A) might have evolved to produce a given emotion even though common sense might dictate that another trigger (B) should be more effective. For the more flagrant emotions (like aggression) the triggers and their evolutionary rationale are obvious and probably mediated by limbic structures in the brain. But more complex emotions require more complex triggers (or combinations of them) to elicit them. The evolutionary logic of these emotional triggers may not be obvious at first but can be teased apart – by imagining yourself in certain situations and simply asking yourself how you would feel. Most complex emotions may depend strongly on social interactions, context, self-worth evaluation, and a sense of who you are as perceived by others. Examples would include pride, arrogance, superciliousness, ambition, guilt, gratitude, and jealousy (the topic of this article). Unlike basic emotions like aggression and fear – mediated mainly by the limbic fight/flight response, these more complex emotions probably require interactions with the orbitofrontal cortex. Such emotions, including the ability to introspect on them (“I am jealous because, etc.”) are probably unique to humans or especially well developed in us. They may require the construction of a “meta-representation” – a representation of earlier representations in the brain (knowing that you know, or knowing that you are jealous).

It raises an important issue. Do the subtler emotions (like pride, ambition, envy, and guilt) each have a peculiar flavor. For example, does jealousy have its own unique subjective qualia or is it a vague nebulously negative feeling that becomes either tinged with its unique “flavor of jealousy,” or is it merely inferred post hoc , based on social context? Unlike (say) the quale of red which kicks in right away independent of social context? Introspection suggest the former; for we often catch ourselves experiencing a twinge of jealousy of a friend – often with surprise and embarrassment – before inferring the reasons, context, etc.

We would venture that a frontal patient may still be capable of aggression, fear, and lust but not of envy or romantic love (which have complex and subtle social dimensions). Such a patient will have great difficulty introspecting on his own emotions – not just expressing them. In evolutionary terms, it is worth noting that even though emotions are privately experienced almost all of them are meaningless except in relation to others; i.e., in a social context (e.g., envy, pride, jealousy, and kindness). This is partially true even of the more basic emotions such as fear, lust, anger, and pain; for instance, we shout “ouch” to attract attention.

What triggers jealousy, beyond the obvious of someone who is better off? And can the functional logic of these triggers (or peculiar combination of social cues) be explained in evolutionary terms; i.e., what might be their survival value? Through introspecting on ourselves and through informally surveying friends, students, colleagues, etc., we composed the following list. For each item on the list, we will try to come up with a plausible evolutionary scenario. Especially important is the question of why you make a particular choice even though common sense might favor the other choice. We would emphasize that these are at this stage merely preliminary informal surveys, whose goal is to prompt further inquiry using rigorous methodology to collect formal data. (In the study of visual perception, analogously visual illusions have a long and venerable tradition in making important points long before detailed measurements were made to confirm those points).

(1) Are you more envious of: (A) someone who is similar to you in most respects but is a bit wealthier (say 50% wealthier) or (B) more envious of Bill Gates? Is a beggar jealous of a slightly more successful beggar or of Bill Gates?

The answer is almost always the former (10 out of 11 people we surveyed chose A). This does not make sense. One usually expects the strength of an emotion to be directly proportional to the resource being sought after; e.g., blood glucose determines the degree of hunger. Following this argument, shouldn’t you be more envious of Bill Gates? Common sense might dictate that the better off someone is than you are, the more envious you should be. But counterintuitively this isn’t true. “Common sense” (the logical or reasoning part of the brain) of course also arose through evolution – but arguably for different needs; i.e., abstract generalizations such as rules of logical inference – which have only limited access to the “laws of emotions” (keeping in mind the modular architecture of the human brain). You ought – logically – to be more jealous of Bill Gates because he has more resources. But the “emotion module” is wired-up for immediate “gut-reactions” like jealousy, sometimes overriding logical inferences. In general, gut-reactions and the “rationality faculty” deliver consistent answers – but not always.

Where conventional EP theories sometimes fall short is that they aren’t always counterintuitive. For example, they “explain” that men prefer younger women because they are more fertile. Neither the phenomenon itself (the choice of younger women) nor the standard explanation (“they are fertile”) is counterintuitive. They fail to fulfill what we call the “grandmother test” – what your grandmother might have deduced from the mere application of common sense. The trouble is that in many scenarios commonly considered in EP, these two (common sense vs. hidden evolutionary agenda) make the same prediction; the only way to dissociate them is to create highly contrived scenarios; which we shall attempt, in this paper.

What is the evolutionary logic that drives envy; e.g., the fact that you envy your neighbor more than Bill Gates? The answer is that the whole purpose of envy is to motivate you into action either by independently trying harder (envy) or by coveting and stealing what the other has (jealousy). This is why jealousy has an aggressive component, but envy is more positive sometimes even being tinged with admiration.

Turning to Bill Gates vs. a more prosperous beggar, we believe this can be explained quite readily by the axiom that envy evolved to motivate access to resources that are in demand by others in your group. If I am the poor beggar my brain quickly computes that in all likelihood the very rich Gates is either deservedly much richer (i.e., he is far smarter), or just extremely lucky. Evolutionarily speaking, there is no point in being jealous of him because he is “off scale” either in ability or luck, so no amount of effort by me can result in reaching his level of prosperity; envy would motivate an inappropriate and futile waste of resources. The richer beggar, on the other hand, may be only slightly smarter, luckier, or more hardworking than me, so there is some chance, at least, that envy might motivate me to exceed his access to resources (or jealousy might make me steal it away from him with impunity).

(2) Are you more envious of (A) someone equal to you in talent, effort, etc., but he/she gets undeservedly promoted over you or (B) of someone who is genuinely better than you, who is rewarded?

The answer is almost always “A” (11 out of 11 people we surveyed chose A). Again, note that this makes no obvious sense; if you want to be as rich as your neighbor, what does it matter whether he was undeservedly rewarded or legitimately rewarded. This can be teased apart further. For example, does it matter whether the other guy got rewarded by the boss, (A) because he is (naturally) genetically more intellectually gifted than you, (B) more hard working, or (C) arbitrarily for no reason? EP would predict that you would be most envious of “B” because the envy would motivate you to do something about it, whereas competing with “A” might be futile; you cannot over-ride genetic endowments. (You might be angry at the boss for being unfair, but not jealous of the recipient.) “C” would make you envious too if “doing something about it” includes complaining to your boss. The greater envy for “B” over “A” should be especially true if “A” is vastly better endowed than you genetically; if he is only slightly better endowed then some envy would be useful – motivated hard work can help you to overcome genetic limitations. This would be analogous to the beggar vs. the other beggar scenario provided above. The third scenario (C) would not provoke envy; it would provoke anger toward the person who unfairly rewards your neighbor. In short, we can show that even though a surface-level analysis of a human psychological propensity makes it seem maladaptive, there is often an evolutionary hidden agenda that drives that propensity, and makes it comprehensible. We are not making a definitive argument here but hopefully providing food for thought.

(3) Let us say I were to prove by brain scans or some other reliable measure (e.g., mood/affect inventory) that (A) the Dalai Lama was vastly happier on some abstract, but very real, scale than (B) someone (say Hugh Heffner) who has limitless access to attractive women. Who are you more envious of?

Most men are more envious of the latter (9 out of 9 males we surveyed chose B). In other words, you are more jealous of what the other person has access to (in relation to what you desire), than of the final overall state of joy and happiness. This is true even though common sense might dictate the opposite. Put differently, evolution has programmed into you an emotion (jealousy) that is triggered by certain very specific “releasers” or social cues; it is largely insensitive to what the other person’s final state of happiness is. The final state of happiness is too abstract to have evolved as a trigger of envy or jealousy.

For similar reasons, if you are starving it makes more sense that you would be more jealous (at least temporarily) of someone enjoying a fine meal than someone having sex with a beautiful woman or man. If you are only slightly hungry, however, you might pick sex. This is because there is an unconscious metric in your brain that computes the probability of finding food in the near future vs. finding a nubile, available mate; and of the urgency of your need for food over the urgency of mating. If you are starving to death and have one last fling, you have only that single mating opportunity whereas if you eat and live you will have plenty of mating opportunities in the future.

(4) Imagine a scenario (A) in which you see another guy/girl making love to a woman/man you are attracted to and desire. You are jealous. But what if (scenario B) you see the same guy/girl having even more passionate sex with a woman/man you are not attracted to.

Surprisingly, you are more jealous of him/her in “A” (13 out of 15), even though one might expect the answer to be “B” – i.e., you should be jealous of and strive to achieve – his final pleasurable state (B) than what leads up to it (A). Again evolution prevails over common sense in a very specific manner. You have a metric in your head (your assessment of your own attractiveness constructed unconsciously by monitoring the frequency and “objective beauty” of other women who were attracted to you in the past) of what you want and are capable of. These triggers determine who or what you are jealous of, even though it doesn’t make any sense. The situation is not fundamentally different from you eating cotton candy. Even though you know rationally it is not good for you, these “carbohydrate binges” were wired into your brain during prehistoric times when food was scarce to help tide over dry spells of famine. In the case of food preference, this idea might seem obvious (although it wasn’t obvious to us until Steven Pinker spelled it out). But in the case of more complex emotions like jealousy, the idea has not been adequately explored in the manner attempted in this article. The general idea is that even complex and subtle nuances of a certain emotion can be analyzed in this manner.

(5) Another example also illustrates how some emotions despite being counterintuitive and seemingly illogical initially reveal a hidden evolutionary agenda. (A) You see your neighbor (who is similar to you in most respects) having moderately enjoyable sex with a woman whom you moderately covet; (B) you see two ugly tramps having intensely pleasurable sex with each other. Who would elicit more envy?

Again, for reasons already alluded to, most people are more envious of “A” (12 out of 15 people we surveyed chose A). This is another example of being envious, not of the final level of intense pleasure (as one might naively expect) but of someone having access to – and only slightly enjoying – something for which you have a modest desire and will only modestly enjoy (but access is denied). Thus, we see that what triggers envy are certain social cues; “happiness” is too abstract to be envious of. All this seems plausible but – once again – we emphasize the need for caution in interpreting such data. You might avoid choosing the tramps not because of the evolutionary reasons alluded to above but because any association with tramps elicits avoidance.

In general, the less complicated or contrived the thought experiment, the more straightforward the result and the interpretation. The simplest example of the genre of thought experiments discussed so far would be; would you be more jealous of (A) your neighbor who is slightly smarter than you who gets a huge raise and award for her performance – or (B) you and she each buy a lottery ticket and she ends up winning 500,000 dollars? If you introspect, your answer like that of most people might be that you would be less jealous in the second scenario (lottery) because you recognize that no amount of extra motivation from you (driven by jealousy) could repeat a fluke accident.

We now introduce the concept of “relevant social circle”:

(6) Imagine you are a first generation Indian immigrant in the United States; (A) your neighbor is also an Indian immigrant of comparable talent; (B) a Chinese immigrant; (C) an American local. Say “A” has something you covet and you envy him; “B” has the same thing and “C” does too. Who would you be most envious (jealous) of? Let us say for the sake of argument that what all of you covet is a woman or man.

Most would envy “A” more than “B” or “C” (11 out of 11 we surveyed chose A). It is the unconscious metric again. Your brain says (in effect), “A” has had the same privileges, opportunities, status, etc. as me, so there is some point in my being envious of him in order to motivate me, since I have at least some chance of gaining access to the same resources; he provides an “existence proof” that someone who is very similar to me can have access to the same resource. “B”, on the other hand, is a complete unknown. Finally, “C” may be favored for completely arbitrary reasons such as racism and xenophobia against a member of the more privileged majority White American culture. Unlike “A”, “C” has most likely had more privileges and opportunities throughout his life, so there is not much motivation for you to compete, as you don’t have a chance of gaining access to his resources – thus envy would lead to a futile waste of resources and time. Instead, the evolutionary consequence might be anger toward “C”, rather than an attempt to compete and balance the inequity through personal effort (you wouldn’t be jealous). Obviously, in many situations the two emotions overlap.

(7) Geographic proximity; this is, a special case of the “relevant social circle” effect: Compare the two cases: (A) Joe lives in Timbuktu. He is very similar to you in talent, looks, capacity for work, etc. but he is twice as wealthy as you; (B) Joe is your neighbor and twice as wealthy.

Most people would be envious of “B” more so than “A” (11 out of 11 we surveyed chose B). Again this makes evolutionary sense. There are millions of people who are like “A” and even though I have assured you logically that they are identical to “B”, your brain requires more direct triggers. On the other hand, you see and interact with “B”, and this is a direct trigger for envy to kick in. “A” is simply too abstract to relate to and, more importantly, is not competing for the same resources as you (and is, in any event, too far from you to do anything about). There would be no motivation to work harder since even if you did, you would not gain access to resources in Timbuktu. You might admire him – even emulate him – from a distance, but it would be futile to be envious.

(8) There is a very attractive woman (or man) you have your eye on and have reason to believe that you are within her range of acceptability and is attracted to you. But another man walks in and she is instantly attracted to him and walks off with him. He is one of three people: (A) he is stunningly handsome and wealthy and walks off with her; (B) only slightly better looking and handsome or even identical to you in most respects; and (C) an ugly old poor tramp. Who would you be most jealous of?

Most people are jealous of “B” (8 out of 11 people we surveyed chose B). After “B” we suggest that people would be jealous of “A” and then “C.” The reason we suggest this is that as a motivator of action, jealousy would be most likely to be effective in situation “B.” Jealousy might be futile in “A,” and you can’t blame him (or her) in succeeding in tempting her away. Lastly, the behavior of your potential target mate in “C” – her choice of an ugly tramp – suggests that her choices are completely idiosyncratic and unpredictable. So there is not much point in even trying.

Jealousy for siblings is a special case. Since a sibling [whether identified correctly or misjudged to be a sibling as a result of close proximity from early childhood (i.e., “the kibbutz effect”)] shares half your genes you should theoretically be less jealous of his access to resources than you would be of a complete stranger. But this is complicated by the fact that you are in direct competition for the same food resources (e.g., during weaning) delivered by parents and by the “relevant social circle” phenomenon predicted above. The net result would be a complex hybrid of emotions, as is often indeed the case with siblings. For the same reason, we would predict that jealousy of parents should be a rarity.

We reiterate that the data presented here are merely preliminary surveys rather than derived from formal research. While introspection can be a valuable source of insight as a starting point, these conjectures must eventually be tested using empirically sound methods. What we have introduced is just the bare skeleton outline of the evolutionary logic that might be driving jealousy. There are bound to be other complex contextual and personality variables that influence any particular individual’s choice in each of these far-fetched scenarios. Nevertheless, these speculations might provide a starting point for a more sophisticated understanding of jealousy than has been hitherto possible, taking us well beyond our “common sense” understanding of this complex human emotion. We believe a similar strategy could be applied for understanding other equally complex human emotions. The goal is to seek the “ulterior motive” in strictly evolutionary terms, of forms of behavior that might initially seem inexplicable. Conversely, pointing out that men like big breasts of young women simply doesn’t cut it; EP does not tell you anything that common sense doesn’t [see Konner (2015) for an elegant exception].

We have considered only one example, namely, jealousy – to illustrate our strategy but, obviously, one could apply it to other emotions. Consider embarrassment, for example. If you are a man buying an adult erotic DVD, would you be more embarrassed if the sales clerk at the cash register was: (A) a handsome young man; (B) a beautiful woman; (C) an old lady; and (D) an ugly old man? The answer is usually “B” or “C” (11 out of 13 males chose either “B” or “C”) but why? And might not the answer give us novel insights into the evolutionary origins of embarrassment?

Another intriguing question is what kinds of triggers (or combinations) elicit jealousy (which has a sharp edge) as opposed to admiration, other than the fact that the latter elicits emulation without malice, whereas the former motivates depriving the target or resources you wish to acquire. If there are two prizes being offered in a competitive game of skill – one of which the target person has acquired – the result might be admiration motivating parallel acquisition of the remaining prize. On the other hand, if there is only one resource, aggressive acquisition requires motivation via jealousy.

A recurring theme, throughout this essay is the contrast between the “rational” or intuitively “obvious” view, on the one hand, and the actual emotion experienced, on the other; e.g., we suggest that based on common sense, beggar “A” should be more jealous of Bill Gates than of beggar “B.” One might initially expect that since jealousy is motivated by the discrepancy of resource, the larger the discrepancy the more the jealousy, but as we have seen that is not the case. The reason for this again is that it would be a poor strategy, evolutionarily, for a beggar to seriously allocate resources of time and energy to become equal to Bill Gates, when the same resources could be more profitably allocated to the more realistic goal of competing successfully against a neighboring beggar.

As another analogy of the difficulty disentangling different threads of culture, genes, emotion, logic, etc., consider the case of you being jealous of your girlfriend having a fling with a man vs. a woman (assuming she is not a habitual lesbian). Most men in our experience would be more upset by the former. This could be for the obvious reason that a man does not want her to be accidentally inseminated and cuckolded, whereas there is no danger of this with a lesbian fling (again, common sense ought to predict that you ought only to be jealous of the fling that produced more pleasure; the gender of the fling-partner should be irrelevant). An alternative to the EP counter-cuckolding argument would be that the male is regarded as being in an “equivalent class” and elicits a bigger competitive jolt – hence jealousy – than a fling with a woman.

Given how primitive our knowledge of the subtle nuances of human emotions is, it is hardly surprising that our insight into the causes of mental illness – which are primarily disturbances of emotions – is equally primitive. It can hardly be true that all the diverse emotional disturbances of a complex organ like the human brain fall into a handful of categories; mood disorders, psychotic disorders, dissociative disorders, etc. (leaving aside the many hundreds of bogus disorders fabricated to be included in the DSM for insurance purposes).

We believe that a deeper understanding of the functional logic and emotional disturbances that underlie mental illness could be obtained by adopting an evolutionary perspective. As we have discussed in more details elsewhere (see Jalal and Ramachandran, in preparation), we propose that gaining deeper insight into the evolutionary rationale of negative emotions and behaviors (including primitive psychological defense mechanisms) could have therapeutic utility. This approach places emphasis on the evolutionary origins of mental quirks – including pathologically amplified ones – which makes it different from conventional therapeutic techniques. It merges elements of psychoanalysis (by stressing the role of primordial drives and defense mechanisms) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT; in that it takes the patient step by step through logical “what if” questions) – embedded in an overarching evolutionary theme. Among other strategies, it uses the approach of posing absurdly farfetched dilemmas to get to the axiomatic system of values (and their derangements) that drive your behavior. A striking example is the observation that noticing what or who you are jealous of is often a more “honest” and accurate indicator of what you truly value than simply asking the same question directly to yourself. Once such a deeper understanding is gained you can begin to shake off emotions and behaviors that are overall maladaptive in the current context. This therapeutic approach would supplement rather than negate current psychotherapies and pharmacological approaches.

Ethics Statement

The study included informal surveying of friends and colleagues, and as such was exempt from ethical approval.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Paul McGeoch and David Brang for stimulating discussions. Data were obtained by the second author of this manuscript prior to joining his current institution (University of Cambridge). As the data included informal surveys (opinions), ethical approval or written informed consent was not required in accordance with the national guidelines in Denmark – that is, the country where the data were collected.

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Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross-cultural studies. Psychol. Bull. 115, 102–141. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.102

Tooby, J., and Cosmides, L. (1990). On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual: the role of genetics and adaptation. J. Pers. 58, 17–67. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1990.tb00907.x

Tooby, J., and Cosmides, L. (2008). “The evolutionary psychology of the emotions and their relationship to internal regulatory variables,” in Handbook of Emotions , eds M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, and L. F. Barret (New York, NY: Guilford), 114–137.

Wierzbicka, A. (1986). Human emotions: universal or culture-specific? Am. Anthropol. 88, 584–594. doi: 10.1525/aa.1986.88.3.02a00030

Keywords : evolutionary psychology, envy, jealousy, emotion, novel thereperutic technique, thought experiments

Citation: Ramachandran VS and Jalal B (2017) The Evolutionary Psychology of Envy and Jealousy. Front. Psychol. 8:1619. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01619

Received: 01 May 2017; Accepted: 04 September 2017; Published: 19 September 2017.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2017 Ramachandran and Jalal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Baland Jalal, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Your Life Kit for love and relationships

Love — both for others and ourselves — takes a lot of work. Life Kit is here with advice on everything from dating apps and relationship contracts to calling it quits.

How understanding jealousy could lead to a better relationship

Andee Tagle

Clare Marie Schneider

Jealousy is such a complex emotion.

One minute, you and your partner are doing just fine, walking down the street, having a laugh. Then, it hits you: maybe you're set off by the wayward glance of an attractive stranger or an invitation to hang out with that hilarious coworker they won't stop talking about.

Spikes of rage, fear, possessiveness, sadness — we all experience romantic jealousy differently, but the common denominator is the feeling of that inner alarm bell going off.

"That's my clue that I am imagining that I'm going to lose my influence over this person who I care about," says research psychologist Joli Hamilton . "I'm imagining that there will be less love, less attention, less something."

Looking For Love At First Swipe? Here's How To Make Dating Apps Work For You

When mishandled, the consequences can be serious . Feelings of jealousy can lead to anything from internal strife to unnecessary arguments to domestic violence and beyond.

But cultivated correctly, jealousy can also be a powerful tool for change and even a "beautiful opportunity" to "deepen our awareness of what we want, who we care about and who we are," says Hamilton.

Read on for tips for unlocking jealousy's power, or listen to the episode at the top of the page.

Readers' note: All of the tips we're sharing assume a baseline of relationships built on mutual trust and respect — everyone is entitled to feel safe with a partner, and jealousy is never an excuse for violence or abuse in any form.

Jealousy, explained

Jealousy and envy are often confused, says change strategist and coach Jacqueline Misla .

Envy, that infamous green-eyed monster, is a reaction to something that you wish you had, like when thinking someone else has a better career or body or house than you do.

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Jealousy, on the other hand, "is a reaction to losing something or someone that you have," says Misla, or even the perception of an interruption or a loss to a valued relationship.

That seemingly knee-jerk reaction stems from a number of places. Jealousy has been documented in infants as early as six months old , so there's a biological component at work, says Hamilton. But there's a big cultural aspect to jealousy as well.

"We are surrounded by stories that give weight to jealousy, that give it a certain importance [...] We're told that we shouldn't want it in our life," says Hamilton. "But also, if you look at all our romcoms and all of our songs and our everything, it's also proof that we are loved appropriately or enough."

And these feelings are only further complicated by our long history of ownership in relationships.

"As a woman of color, I think one of the things that I've had to explore in my own ancestry and history is that ownership is not just something that we talk about now in terms of relationships," says Misla. "Being territorial, ownership was actually very real. ...Women were the property of men, and people of color were owned by other folks."

The Key To Flirting? It's Not About You

The bottom line here is that it's completely natural to feel jealous — it's what you do with those feelings that matter. Accepting jealousy as another part of the everyday emotional spectrum, rather than glamorizing it or trying to ignore it, is the key to using it for good.

Jealousy often sparks from our own insecurities. Find the root cause of your feelings and self soothe where you can

Misla and Hamilton agree that while the result of jealousy is usually external friction, the cause is almost always an internal feeling of insecurity, scarcity or fear and is oftentimes a product of previous experiences.

Maybe when you were growing up, your parents' relationship left you with trust issues, or maybe an ex was unfaithful in the past. Whatever your situation, everyone has their soft spots — even in relationships where jealousy is openly addressed or even expected.

Misla, who is in two non-monogamous relationships, says it's important to ask yourself what your jealousy is trying to tell you about your wants and needs.

You're Probably Not As Open-Minded As You Think. Here's How To Practice

"When I've experienced jealousy, my wife has been out with somebody, and they've been doing walks in Central Park, and they're on rooftop bars having drinks," says Misla, "And I had to dissect, oh, I want to go to a rooftop bar. I want to take a walk through Central Park!"

Instead of starting a fight over something unrelated, Misla realized she could meet that need to go out on her own or with other friends and then could ask her for date night in a healthy way.

"That's an opportunity then for me to have dialogue and say, hey, I'm wondering if we can build in more date nights, I'm wondering if we can actually have a night that feels extravagant once a month so that we both feel special," Misla says.

Only give your jealousy the appropriate time and space it needs

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to jealousy, but it's important to note that when your inner jealousy monster arises, your best self isn't usually online.

Sometimes you just need a deep breath and a moment to let the feelings pass. Sometimes you need to scream-sing in the car. And sometimes you might feel like you really need to let your partner know what's going on inside your head — Hamilton says to proceed with caution on this last one.

"It's never too early to bring it to your partner, but it is essential that you remember that the jealousy you're feeling is yours to deal with and is not theirs," Hamilton says.

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Being aware of and verbalizing our feelings is important, emphasizes Hamilton, but projecting those feelings onto a partner or holding a relationship hostage by our own sensitivities before calibrating for reality is "impractical" and "disempowering."

Hanging your happiness solely on your partner's specific actions or reactions — instead of working together to create fair relationship boundaries — creates an unstable foundation.

So if you need to loop in your partner, try to find space to de-escalate tension and fulfill your needs in lighthearted ways, says Misla.

If it's time for a change, don't make demands — problem-solve together

Hamilton says jealousy in relationships requires change when it starts curtailing your actions or those of your partners or when unhealthy patterns arise.

Maybe texting is a sticking point. If your partner asks you not to text a certain person, that might be a red flag. If it's a whole gender, there could be serious control issues at work.

Hamilton says often people are tempted to agree to completely impractical relationship boundaries to pacify their partners, but that is "at best a very cheap Band-Aid" that does "very little meeting of the feeling where it actually is."

So instead of setting unrealistic boundaries, take the time to talk through your feelings and your needs and then work together to create a game plan. Can you agree to a daily check-in text? Can you meet each other's friends? Set up a no-phone policy after a certain time of day? There might not always be a perfect middle ground, but you can work together to get to a space where everyone feels safe and heard.

And if any of that feels too big to manage on your own, Hamilton says turning to a trusted and neutral third party, like a therapist, is a great idea.

Practice compersion to loosen jealousy's grip

Compersion is commonly understood as the opposite of jealousy and is most often associated with non-monogamous relationships. It more specifically refers to feeling joy — instead of threat — when your partner is interacting romantically with someone else.

If that seems like a wild idea to you, Hamilton says it might not be as far away as you think.

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"It's not the most intuitive emotion for most of us when it comes to romance, so I like to ask people to think about times that they've witnessed a puppy being happy or a little child, that's an easy place to see ourselves be compersive," says Hamilton. "We want to nurture the feeling of joy for others' joy because that's always pleasant."

Of course, that doesn't mean it's easy. Misla's been working at it with her wife for years.

"When there are parts of me that are feeling empty and disconnected from her, it's much harder for me to fully experience compersion," says Misla. "When I am feeling full in myself, full in our relationship, then joy just spills over and can become my joy."

And this wisdom doesn't just apply to non-monogamous relationships. Making space for celebrating your partner's wins and finding happiness in their happiness might not take your jealousy away, but you might be surprised by how much it can lighten your load.

The podcast portion of this episode was produced by Clare Marie Schneider.

We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected] .

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What's Really Behind Jealousy, and What to Do About It

Practical tips for dealing with a partner's jealousy, or your own..

Posted October 28, 2014 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• Understanding Jealousy
• Find a therapist near me
• Research shows that jealousy is often fueled by insecurity, not love for a partner.
• The best way to deal with a jealous partner may be to reassure them of your affection.
• Working on your own confidence and having good communication with your partner are key to coping with jealousy.

It's a common misconception that jealousy is a sign of love.

I recently saw the following quote on Twitter, from a source whose username at least suggested the author was associated with psychology: “The people who are really in love get jealous over stupid things.” I was surprised to see this misconception so deeply ingrained that even seemingly psychologically savvy people believe it.

Jealousy can be a major relationship problem—a survey of marital therapists reported that romantic jealousy was a serious problem for a third of their clients. 1 I hope to dispel the myth that jealousy is a sign of love. But if it's not, then what really motivates jealous responses?

Research has linked several traits to greater jealousy:

• Low self-esteem . 2,3
• Neuroticism : a general tendency to be moody, anxious , and emotionally unstable. 2,4
• Feelings of insecurity and possessiveness. 5
• Dependence on your partner: 6,7 Even asking people to imagine that they don’t have good alternative partners leads to more negative reactions to hypothetical jealousy-inducing scenarios. 8
• Feelings of inadequacy in your relationship: Generally fearing that you’re not good enough for your partner. 3,9,10
• An anxious attachment style: A chronic orientation toward romantic relationships that involves fear that your partner will leave you or won’t love you enough. 11,12 Research has shown that temporarily causing people to feel more securely attached, by asking them to think about receiving support from a loved one, makes them react less severely to a hypothetical jealousy-inducing situation. 13

All of these factors that relate to jealousy are about the insecurities of the jealous people , not about the love they have for their partner. 14

So if your partner is exhibiting unwarranted jealousy, what should you do?

You should realize that your partner’s jealousy isn’t about you ; it’s about them . Respond to expressions of jealousy by reassuring your partner of your love. Research has shown that those who respond to partners’ jealousy by reassuring them of their interest and attraction tend to have more stable relationships. 15

What should you do if you’re jealous?

How should you deal with jealousy if you’re the one snooping through your partner’s email? Several actions can help you cope:

• Avoid situations that are likely to arouse false suspicions. In one survey, researchers found that those who were jealous tended to monitor their partners’ Facebook activity. The more they snooped on Facebook, the more they would find evidence to worry about, leading to even more spying, and creating a vicious cycle of increased monitoring and jealousy. 16
• Work on yourself. Work on building your confidence in yourself and your relationship.
• Communicate with your partner. If you are experiencing jealousy, talk about it with your partner—but the way you talk is key: If you express anger or sarcasm, or hurl accusations at your partner, that’s not going to help. You must be direct, but not hostile. Calmly explain your feelings and discuss how to find a solution. This will enable you to be more satisfied 17 and prevent your partner from being confused by your jealous behavior. 18 These communication strategies are most likely to bring out positive responses in your partner. 19

Sometimes jealousy is justified: If your partner has had an affair and has betrayed your trust, for example, that is a serious issue. If you are jealous because you’re involved with someone who doesn’t seek monogamy , while you do, then your jealous feelings may be a good reason to leave the relationship and seek someone whose relationship goals are more compatible with yours. But when you get jealous over “stupid things," you’re not showing love; you’re revealing your own insecurities.

“There is more self-love than love in jealousy” — Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Gwendolyn Seidman, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Albright College.

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Perception of cyberdating abuse from the victims’ perspective: effect of the type of suffered behavior and gender

• Open access
• Published: 29 April 2024

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• M. Dolores Sánchez-Hernández   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1011-2199 1 ,
• M. Carmen Herrera   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6960-5866 1 &
• Francisca Expósito   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6157-4292 1  

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Direct cyberaggression and cybercontrol, although both are manifestations of cyberdating abuse (CDA), seem to show different intentionality and impact. Furthermore, how young people perceive and experience CDA within heterosexual relationships varies by gender. However, no studies have examined whether the victims’ perception of offense and severity in an incident of CDA and the motivations that they attributed to their aggressor’s behavior vary by the type of victimization and gender. This research ( N  = 92 participants; 56.5% men and 43.5% women) was aimed at addressing this gap in the literature. Participants randomly completed an essay in which the CDA victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) was manipulated and then responded to dependent measures. The results showed that (a) direct cyberaggression (vs. cybercontrol ) victimization was perceived as more offensive and severe; (b) women (vs. men) perceived greater offense and severity in a CDA victimization incident; (c) direct cyberaggression victimization was more frequently attributed to anger/frustration and online disinhibition, whereas cybercontrol victimization was attributed to personality and jealousy; and (d) a higher percentage of men indicated that their partners had perpetrated CDA against them because of the partners’ personality, whereas a higher percentage of women indicated that they had been victims of CDA because their partners experienced online disinhibition. We discussed the theoretical and practical contributions of our findings in the CDA field.

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Introduction

Cyberdating abuse (CDA), which integrates a wide range of behaviors facilitated by digital media, is a widespread health and social problem in young people’s romantic relationships. There is no consensus on definitions and concepts to designate intimate partner violence (IPV) using the Internet, but the term CDA has been the most used in literature (for a review, see Caridade et al., 2019 ). It refers to the “control, harassment, stalking, and abuse of one’s dating partner via technology and social media” (Zweig et al., 2014 , p. 1306). Such behaviors may be directed at current or ex-partners with whom perpetrators have or have had a bonding characterized by affection, sexual involvement, and/or dating (Borrajo et al., 2015b ).

CDA is a complex phenomenon that needs to be examined within the context in which it takes place. Several researchers suggest young people often do not identify CDA behaviors they have experienced in their relationships as a form of IPV (e.g., Belotti et al., 2022 ; Sánchez-Hernández et al., 2020 ). This leads to the risk that sensitivity to CDA and the ability to respond to it can be lost by minimizing, denying, or normalizing these behaviors. Therefore, it is not enough to examine the frequency with which the CDA behaviors occur; it is essential to analyze contextual factors such as the meaning that those involved attribute to the CDA experiences, the perceived severity, or the impact CDA has on victims. Although interest in examining the effects of CDA victimization has increased recently, less effort has been devoted to understanding how victims perceive and experience CDA situations depending on the nature of the behavior suffered. This research will address this gap in the literature.

CDA behaviors

According to Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ), the set of online behaviors that make up the CDA phenomenon can be classified into two types of abuse: cybercontrol , that is, online abusive behaviors intended to control and surveil the partner/ex-partner via digital media (e.g., checking the partner/ex-partner’s mobile phone without permission or sending insidious messages to the partner/ex-partner), and direct cyberaggression , that is, deliberate behaviors aimed at harming the partner/ex-partner, such as insulting, threatening, or humiliating them through technology (e.g., sending sexually explicit photos of the partner/ex-partner without their consent via WhatsApp or social network sites). Both direct cyberaggression and cybercontrol behaviors manifest violence within intimate partner relationships and seem to have detrimental effects on the well-being of individuals and relationships. However, they present differences in terms of their nature that should be taken into account.

For example, Reed et al. ( 2021a ) have recently observed in a sample of adolescent students that the main reasons for direct cyberaggression against a partner were being upset or angry or being in a situation of conflict and fighting, whereas the main motivations for cybercontrol were insecurity, normally in situations of jealousy and suspicions of infidelity. Moreover, several researchers has suggested that direct cyberaggression behaviors take on more explicit and recognizable manifestations of IPV, whereas cybercontrol includes indirect abusive behaviors that may go unnoticed (e.g., Borrajo et al., 2015b ; Stonard et al., 2017 ). In particular, cybercontrolling behaviors are often perceived as a consequence of digital media use rather than CDA manifestations (Belotti et al., 2022 ). The features of the digital environment (e.g., easy access to the partner’s information, constant connection without temporal or geographical limits, or the possibility of carrying out the abusive behavior without being seen by others) could be legitimizing cybercontrol against one’s partner by not involving a clear violation of the partner’s privacy and, therefore, of moral codes of behavior (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011 ). Moreover, many young people tend to accept and normalize cybercontrol behaviors from their partners by interpreting them as expressions of love and concern (Nardi-Rodríguez et al., 2018 ).

Such observed differences in the perception of these CDA behaviors seem, in turn, to be consistent with their prevalence rates. Although it is difficult to determine the actual prevalence of CDA due to a lack of consensus on CDA terms, its operationalization, and CDA measures (for a review, see Soto & Ibabe, 2022 ), international research has suggested that rates of direct cyberaggression victimization range from 14% (Borrajo et al., 2015b ) to 31.7% (Gámez-Guadix et al., 2016 ), whereas cybercontrol victimization ranges from 65% (Van Ouytsel et al., 2017 ) to 81% (Gámez-Guadix et al., 2016 ). Similarly, the prevalence of direct aggression perpetration ranges from 10.6% (Borrajo et al., 2015a ) to 14.7% (Caridade et al., 2019 ), and that of cybercontrol perpetration ranges from 49.6% (Van Ouytsel et al., 2017 ) to 88.4% (Borrajo et al., 2015b ).

In sum, previous research suggests that the behaviors most exercised against partners by young people and least identified as manifestations of IPV are cybercontrol behaviors (Donoso-Vazquez et al., 2018 ). In contrast, direct cyberaggression behaviors seem to receive greater social sanction (Reed et al., 2021b ), which could explain why they show lower prevalence ratio. Considering the above, it would be reasonable to think that experiencing direct cyberaggression behaviors perpetrated by a partner is perceived as more offensive and severe than suffering controlling behaviors. We have tested this assumption in our research.

Gender differences in CDA experiences

The literature has amply demonstrated that the way people perceive and experience CDA varies by gender. For instance, women seem to experience more physical and mental health and behavioral problems (e.g., depressive symptoms, anxiety, fear, suicidal ideation, substance use, or sexually transmitted diseases) as a result of CDA than men (e.g., Brown et al., 2022 ; Stonard et al., 2017 ). Moreover, while men often perceive a positive connotation in suffering CDA behaviors (i.e., they feel protected and loved by their partner), women tend to perceive these behaviors as more upsetting and offending and experience greater fear (Stonard et al., 2017 ). Some findings have also suggested that, in comparison with women, men tend to perceive it to be easier to stop or escape from their situation of CDA victimization (Brown et al., 2022 ). These findings align with the argument that CDA in heterosexual relationships is gender asymmetrical, placing women in a position of vulnerability in their romantic relationships (Walby & Towers, 2018 ). Therefore, analyzing only the frequency of CDA behaviors and relying on a standard definition is inadequate; it is essential to understand how people perceive and experience the episodes of CDA in their relationships based on their gender.

On the other hand, although both men and women engage in CDA behaviors within their relationships, the intentions underlying CDA and the tactics exercised seem to vary by gender (Reed et al., 2021a , b ). Specifically, several researchers have suggested that men tend to engage in more frequent perpetration of explicit CDA manifestations such as sexual cyberdating abuse and direct cyberaggression against their partner (e.g., Brown et al., 2022 ; Reed et al., 2021b ). In contrast, women seem to exercise more passive and indirect tactics, such as cybercontrol (e.g., Linares et al., 2021 ; Reed et al., 2021b ).

Likewise, although the previous findings were not conclusive, the literature has suggested that the motivations that women express for exercising CDA are more related to insecurity, jealousy, or the need to save the relationship at all costs (e.g., Calvete et al., 2021 ; Stonard, 2017 ), while the CDA exercised by boys seems to be more explicit and is more motivated by anger or a perceived threat to their status within the relationship (e.g., Reed et al., 2021a , b ). In summary, previous literature suggests that while both men and women seem to engage in and experience CDA in their relationships, the intentions for its perpetration, the way it is perceived, as well as its consequences appear to differ (Brown et al., 2022 ).

Research overview

Building on the reviewed literature, we conducted a retrospective survey study aimed at examining differences in CDA experiences within heterosexual relationships from the victim’s perspective. In particular, we first examined whether there are differences in the perceived offense and severity of a CDA incident as a function of the type of victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) and the participant’s gender (man vs. woman). Specifically, we expected that participants who described, in writing, a situation of direct cyberaggression victimization would perceive greater offense (Hypothesis 1a) and severity (Hypothesis 1b) than those who described an incident of cybercontrol victimization. Similarly, we hypothesized that women would perceive greater offense (Hypothesis 2a) and severity (Hypothesis 2b) compared to men, primarily those who were asked to vividly describe a situation of victimization by direct cyberaggression (vs. cybercontrol; Hypothesis 3a and b, respectively).

Second, few researchers have paid attention to examining the aggressor’s motivations to commit CDA from the victims’ perspective. To our knowledge, only one study has addressed this question directly using a quantitative measure with a multiple-choice response format (see Borrajo et al., 2015a ). The results showed that the majority of victims (51.4%) indicated that their partners had exercised CDA against them in a context of jealousy, 26.1% reported that it happened in a game or joking context, 23.9% reported a retaliation situation (i.e., reactive violence), and 12.8% reported a manifestation of anger or annoyance as the context. However, in the study in question, results were not examined by gender or each type of victimization (direct cyber aggression vs. cyber control). On the other hand, Calvete et al. ( 2021 ) observed in a sample of adolescents that IPV victims, considering different manifestations of offline and online violence, interpreted the most frequent reasons for aggression were jealousy (50.7%) and anger (43.7%) followed by demonstrations of love (28.3%), play (22.8%), and reactivity (20.6%). These reasons were very consistent with those observed from the offender’s perspective. However, this study also does not examine the reasons for victimization depending on the type of behavior suffered. Moreover, these types of quantitative CDA and IPV measures that include “incident-specific follow-up questions” to capture motivations for CDA perpetration have received criticism in the literature (see Hamby, 2016 ).

In our study, we aimed to address this limitation by employing an open-response format to better understand the context in which CDA takes place and examine whether other motivations emerge beyond those contemplated by Borrajo et al. ( 2015a , 2015b ). Furthermore, we extended their work by exploring motivations for CDA as a function of the type of CDA victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) and the gender of the participants (man vs. woman). We consider it essential to investigate whether victims can determine the reasons that lead their partners to exercise CDA behaviors against them, not only to know the context in which each type of CDA arises but also to understand how victims interpret the CDA situation based on gender and how such interpretation could influence, in turn, their perception of severity and offense and their relational dynamics.

Because previous research is scarce and inconsistent, we did not hypothesize about the frequency of emergent motivations and their possible differences according to CDA behaviors (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) and gender. However, in line with previous findings (Reed et al., 2021a ), we anticipated that we could find differences in the motivations that CDA victims attributed to their aggressors’ behavior depending on the type of abuse suffered, given the different nature of each behaviors. Similarly, because some gender differences have been predicted in CDA motivations (e.g., Calvete et al., 2021 ; Reed et al., 2021a ), we also anticipate that the attributed motivations might differ by victims’ gender.

Participants and procedure

Of the 284 people who took the survey, 80 (28.17%) were excluded because they did not complete the full questionnaire, 21 (7.39%) because they responded incorrectly to the manipulation check item (i.e., the condition they were in), and 12 (4.23%) because they failed attention check items (i.e., “If you are reading this question, answer with 3”). Moreover, 79 (27.82%) participants were redirected to the end of the survey because they indicated not having experienced the critical incident, and we thanked them for their participation. Thus, the final sample consisted of 92 participants ( M age = 22.74, SD  = 3.63, range 18–32 years; 56.5% men). All of them had a Spanish nationality and a heterosexual orientation. Half of all participants reported being in a dating relationship (55.4%), 34.8% participants were single, 8.7% were cohabiting, and 1.1% was married.

We implemented a between-subjects factorial design manipulating the type of CDA victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol), using the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954 ). Specifically, similar to what other authors have previously done (e.g., Alonso-Ferres et al., 2021 ), participants were randomly assigned to complete an essay intended to elicit different experiences of CDA victimization (direct cyberaggression: n  = 40 participants [22 men and 18 women]; cybercontrol: n = 52 participants [30 men and 22 women]). We designed these essays or conditions based on the operational definition of CDA by Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ). After writing about the assigned incident, they were asked to complete another short questionnaire about this situation.

We used the Qualtrics research platform to develop an online survey containing the variable of interest and, following a snowball sampling, we distributed it through an open-access link in several online social media (i.e., email and social network sites: Facebook and WhatsApp). The participants had to fulfill the following criteria: (a) having Spanish nationality, (b) being between 18 and 35 years of age Footnote 1 , (c) having a heterosexual orientation, and (d) having been in a past or current romantic relationship. Before completing the questionnaire, we informed to participants about the study’s goal and its anonymous and voluntary nature. First, they had to give their consent to voluntarily collaborate in our research, according to the Declaration of Helsinki, and then fill in a single questionnaire based on their personal opinions and experiences. They were not paid for their participation. Participants took approximately 15 min to complete the task. Once participants completed the survey, they were fully debriefed and thanked. This study was conducted after receiving the approval of Ethics Committee of University of Granada.

Cyberdating abuse victimization

The victimization subscale of the Cyber Dating Abuse Questionnaire (CDAQ; Borrajo et al., 2015b ) was administered to assess the frequency with which individuals experience CDA behaviors. This measure was composed of 20 items divided into two dimensions: (a) direct cyberaggression (eleven items, e.g., “My partner has created a fake profile about me on a social network to cause me problems”) and (b) monitoring/cybercontrol (nine items, e.g., “My partner or ex-partner has used my passwords [phone, social networks, email] to snoop on my messages and/or contacts without my permission”). The response format was a 6-point Likert-type scale with the anchors 1 ( never ), 2 ( not in the last year , but it occurred before ), 3 ( rarely : 1 or 2 times ), 4 ( sometimes : between 3 and 10 times ), 5 ( often : between 10 and 20 times ), and 6 ( always : more than 20 times ). We calculated a global CDA victimization score from the average, where high scores indicated a high frequency of victimization. In this sample, we obtained a Cronbach’s α coefficient of .91.

Manipulation of the type of CDA victimization

Based on the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954 ), participants were instructed to remember and describe in writing a situation in which their partner or ex-partner had exercised one cyberabusive behavior against them, depending on the type of victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol). More specifically, we gave them the following instructions: “Recall and describe a situation in which your current partner or ex-partner used some technological means (social networks, Whatsapp, SMS, etc.) with the intention of,” (for the direct cyberaggression condition), “deliberately harming you (e.g. insulting you, threatening you, humiliating you),” or (for the cybercontrol condition), “controlling you (e.g., monitoring you and invading your privacy).”

After describing the incident, participants who had indicated that they had suffered the situation above answered other short questions about it.

Relationship described in the incident

To control whether the participants were referring to their current or past relationship and its possible effect on the perception of the described CDA incident (i.e., recognition bias, see Sánchez-Hernández et al., 2020 ), we designed the following item with a two-alternative categorical response format: “The situation you have just described refers to your: (a) current relationship or (b) past relationship.”

We measured the offense experienced in the scenario described using previous research by Valor-Segura et al. ( 2014 ) as a basis. Specifically, we used the item, “How offensive did you find the described behavior of your partner/ex-partner towards you?” with a Likert-type response format ranging from 1 ( not at all offensive ) to 7 ( extremely offensive ).

To assess the perceived severity of the incident described, we used the following item based on Sánchez-Hernández et al. ( 2020 ): “How severe do you consider the behavior described above?” The format response was Likert-type ranging from 1 ( not severe at all ) to 7 ( extremely severe).

Motivations for perpetration

To assess the causes to which participants ascribed cybervictimization by their partners as described in the critical incident, we used the item developed by Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ) for this purpose (“For what reasons do you think your partner or ex-partner was able to carry out that behavior towards you through new technologies [Social networks, Whatsapp, SMS, etc.]?”). Nevertheless, we used an open-ended answer (i.e., “Please describe briefly”) with the aim of contemplating possible emerging categories beyond those described by Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ) in the development of their scale (i.e., jealousy, game/joke, frustration/anger, discussions, personality, and reactive violence).

Manipulation check

We designed one item to check whether participants had answered to dependent variables according to the incident they had just recalled (i.e., “In the previous situation, you were asked to recall and describe an aggressive act by your partner/ex-partner towards you with the intention of: [a] deliberately harming you, or [b] controlling or monitoring you”).

Sociodemographic information

Data about participants’ gender (“What is your gender identity? Man/Woman/Other [specify]”), age (“What is your age?”), and relational status (“What is your relational status? Single/Dating/Cohabiting/Married/ Other [specify]”) were collected.

Statistical analysis strategy

To estimate the effect size in our sample, first we carried out a sensitivity power analysis using G*Power (Version 3.1.9.4) with our sample ( N  = 92; 1 − β = 95%; α = 0.05) to ANCOVA with four groups, one degree of freedom, and two covariates. The design had the ability to detect a medium effect size, f 2  = 0.38.

Data analysis was performed using SPSS (Version 23). Prior to performing the main analyses, we checked the assumptions of normality and multilinearity. We also estimated the main descriptive statistics and the associations between the study variables through correlation analyses. Moreover, we conducted independent samples t test analyses to estimate gender differences; gender was included as the independent variable (IV; 1 =  man ; 2 =  woman ) and offense and severity as dependent variables (DVs). Thereafter, we conducted a chi-square test to check the manipulation efficacy, further using the phi coefficient to estimate effect sizes. We then carried out a bifactorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANCOVA) to examine our predictions about the influence of the type of victimization (Hypothesis 1), gender (Hypothesis 2), and their interaction effect (Hypothesis 3) on the perception of the severity and offensiveness of the CDA suffered. The type of victimization (1 =  direct cyberaggression ; 2 =  cybercontrol ) and gender were included as the IVs, and the severity and offensiveness perceived as DVs. Ultimately, we included the relationship described in the critical incident (1 =  current ; 2 =  past ) and the frequency of CDA victimization as covariates in our analysis. When the emerging interactions were significant, we performed simple a slope analyses to facilitate their interpretation.

Finally, we conducted a deductive content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005 ) to examine differences in the perceived motivations to CDA from the victims’ perspective. First, we generated a main document containing the motivations described verbatim by the participants in each condition (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol). Second, the three authors each independently read all the answers to the question, noting down recurring themes. Next, we discussed the themes that emerged in creating and defining the categories, which were collected in a codebook. In particular, we followed Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ) categorical classification of motivations for CDA and identified other emergent motives in participants’ responses. Following the considerations of Crocker et al. ( 1988 ), we then selected two experts—psychologists with research experience in the field of IPV—who were unaware of the objectives of the study (for more information, see Supplementary Material [SM1.1]). Each judge coded the responses and classified them according to our themes indicating which motivations were present. We then tested the inter-rater agreement for each motivation; in accordance with Landis and Koch ( 1977 ), the kappa values showed adequate reliability across all motivational codes: 0.72 for jealousy, 0.85 for anger/frustration, 0.80 for arguments/verbal confrontation, 0.76 for personality, 0.75 for re-establishment of control and/or power, and 0.90 for online disinhibition. Subsequently, we computed the occurrences of motivation codes and performed several chi-square tests to explore potential differences based on the type of CDA victimization (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) and participants’ gender (man vs. woman). Thus, we included the type of CDA victimization or gender as IVs separately, and the various motivational codes as dependent variables DVs. Sankey plots were also drawn using Atlas.ti (version 22) to facilitate the visualization of data. All research data and scripts are publicly available and can be accessed at the Open Science Framework (OSF).

Preliminary analyses

Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables.

As shown in Table  1 , we did not observe the problem of multicollinearity because correlations among variables were less than 0.80 (Shrestha, 2020 ). Concerning normality, the analysis showed that the skewness and kurtosis values for all measures were within acceptable limits of ± 2 (ranging between − 0.81 and 0.77), which indicated a normal distribution (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2014 ).

Regarding correlation analyses, the main results showed that the type of victimization was negatively related to offense and severity: Participants in the direct cyberaggression (vs. cybercontrol) condition scored higher in offense and severity. Gender was positively associated with offense and severity, with women (vs. men) manifesting higher scores in both variables. Similarly, gender was positively related to CDA victimization, with women showing a higher frequency of it compared to men. Furthermore, the perceived offense was positively related to the perception of severity. On the other hand, CDA victimization was positively associated with the perception of offense and severity. The relationship described in the critical incident was positively related to the perception of severity, with greater scores in participants who recalled a past relationship (vs. the current relationship).

The independent t-test analysis showed that women reported a greater perception of offense and severity in the described incident than men. Additionally, women exhibited a higher frequency of CDA victimization compared to men (see Table  1 ).

The results showed that 88.6% of the participants belonging to the cyberaggression condition responded correctly to the manipulation check item (i.e., they selected the deliberately harming you answer option), and 91.4% of the participants allocated to the cybercontrol condition also correctly identified their condition (i.e., they indicated the controlling or monitoring you option). The chi-square test yielded statistically significant differences and a large effect size (χ 2 [1, 102] = 65.31, p  <.001, φ = 0.80), which supported the manipulation’s effectiveness. We removed those participants ( n  = 10) who failed the manipulation check item from analysis.

Effect of type of victimization and gender on perceived offense and severity

The results showed a statistically significant effect of the type of victimization on participants’ perception of offense ( F [1, 91] = 9.63, p = .003, η p 2  = 0.10) and severity ( F [1, 91] = 9.64, p = .003, η p 2  = 0.10). Specifically, participants who had described an incident of direct cyberaggression victimization expressed greater offense ( M direct−aggression = 6.13, SD  = 0.97; M control = 5.58, SD  = 0.96) and greater severity ( M direct−aggression = 5.93, SD  = 1.02; M control = 5.23, SD  = 1.02) than participants who had described an incident of cybercontrol victimization, which supported Hypothesis 1. On the other hand, the results indicated that participants’ gender significantly influenced their perception of offense ( F [1, 91] = 14.59, p  <.001, η p 2  = 0.15) and severity ( F [1, 91] = 19.51, p  <.001, η p 2  = 0.19) in the described incident. That is, women manifested higher levels of offense ( M women = 6.20, SD  = 0.97; M men = 5.52, SD  = 0.92) and severity ( M women = 6.02, SD  = 0.97; M men = 5.15, SD  = 1.00) than men. These findings supported Hypothesis 2.

Finally, the results yielded a statistically significant interaction effect between type of victimization and participants’ gender on offense ( F [1, 91] = 10.45, p  =.002, η p 2  = 0.11). A simple slopes analysis indicated that the effect was significant for women ( b  = − 1.15, SE  = 0.27, t  = − 4.20, p  <.001, 95% CI [− 1.69, − 0.60]), but not for men ( b  = 0.01, SE  = 0.24, t  = 0.05, p  =.96, 95% CI [− 0.46, 0.48]). Thus, women who described a direct cyberaggression victimization situation manifested greater offense compared to those who described a cybercontrol victimization scenario, supporting Hypothesis 3a (see Fig.  1 ).

Two-way interaction between type of victimization and gender in offense

The interaction effect between type of victimization and participants’ gender on severity was not statistically significant, rejecting Hypothesis 3b ( F [1, 91] = 0.01, p  =.95, η p 2  = 0.00).

In terms of covariates, the results indicated that the relationship described in the critical incident significantly affected perceived severity ( F [1, 91] = 10.01, p  =.002, η p 2  = 0.10). Specifically, participants who recalled a CDA victimization situation that took place in past relationships perceived greater severity in the incident than participants who recalled a CDA victimization situation in their current relationship ( M pas t = 5.67, SD  = 1.02; M current = 4.79, SD  = 1.12). Similarly, CDA victimization positively influenced the perception of severity ( F [1, 91] = 4.21, p  =.043, η p 2  = 0.05), indicating that participants with a high frequency of CDA victimization reported a high degree of perceived severity.

Qualitative analysis of motivations

Participants’ responses about their motives for their partners’ victimizing them were coded into six themes. Following Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ) classification, we observed that the victims attributed their aggressor’ behaviors to jealousy (e.g., “Because of unhealthy jealousy”), anger/frustration (e.g., “Because of the heat of the moment in that situation, since he was angry”), arguments/verbal confrontation (e.g., “Because she wanted to talk about a particular topic and I didn’t want to at that moment”), and personality (e.g., “She was a distrustful person, probably because of her insecurities and comparing herself to other girls”). However, the motivational categories of playing/joking and reactivity were no present. Furthermore, two new motives for CDA emerged in the victims’ perceived responses, which we called reestablishment of control and/or power and online disinhibition . According to the works of previous researchers (e.g., Marganski & Fauth, 2013 ), the first refers to those cases in which victims interpreted that one’s partner exercised CDA against them to regain lost power or control within the relationship (e.g., “Because my partner wanted to gain security and control over the relationship,” or, “Because he didn’t see me as a person just like him, and he thought he could treat me however he wanted”). Similarly, according to the definition proposed by Suler ( 2004 ), online disinhibition motivation manifested itself when victims interpreted that their partner felt more liberated and uninhibited to perform certain CDA behaviors, even behaving differently online compared to the offline environment (e.g., “Through digital media, the behavior went more unnoticed by others and, as he was not brave enough to face the problems in a real way, he hid behind a screen” or “Because through a screen it is easier to hurt the other person; you can simply say something hurtful and turn off the mobile and disengage, for example”). Some participants also reported that they had no response to the open-ended question (e.g., “I don’t really know”). These responses were coded as not applicable because they were not relevant to the study purpose.

Frequency of motivation codes based on type of victimization and gender

As shown in Table  2 , over half of the participants indicated that the most frequent reason for which their partners exercised CDA behaviors against them was personality (51.1%), followed by jealousy (43.5%), reestablishment of control and/or power (26.1%), online disinhibition and anger/frustration (14.1% for each), and verbal arguments/confrontations (2.2%).

We also noted significant differences based on the type of victimization in the attributed motives of personality and jealousy (see Table  2 ; Fig.  2 ). Specifically, we observed that a higher significantly percentage of participants who described a situation of cybercontrol victimization indicated that they had suffered this type of abuse because of their partner’s personality (67.3%) and jealousy (59.6%) compared to the percentage of participants who experienced direct cyberaggression for the same reasons: personality (30%) and jealousy (22.5%). Similarly, the results highlighted significant differences in the attributed motives of anger/frustration and online disinhibition. In this case, a higher percentage of participants belonging to the direct cyberaggression victimization condition indicated that the reasons their partners victimized them were anger/frustration (25%) and ease of disinhibition through digital media (32.5%) compared to the percentage of participants belonging to the cybercontrol victimization condition who also reported these reasons: anger/frustration (5.8%) and online disinhibition (0%).

Net frequency of motivations codes by type of CDA victimization

Regarding participants’ gender (man vs. woman), we also found significant differences in some motivation codes. In particular, a statistically greater percentage of men (59.6%) than women (40%) reported that their partners had exercised CDA against them because of their personalities. Likewise, results showed a higher percentage of women (22.5%) than men (7.7%) reported experiencing CDA because their partners felt more uninhibited in behaving differently through digital media compared to a face-to-face context. In addition, a substantially higher percentage of women (35%) than men (19.2%) reported that their partners exercised CDA against them to exert power and/or control in the relationship; however, these differences were not significant. Similarly, a higher percentage of men than women reported that their partners carried out CDA behaviors against them because they were jealous, but this difference was also not significant (see Table  2 ; Fig.  3 ).

Net frequency of motivations codes by gender

Auxiliary analyses

We explored in an auxiliary way whether the motivations that victims attributed to their aggressors’ behavior affect their perception of offense and severity in the described scenario (see SM2.1). Thus, we conducted two linear regression analyses including all emergent motivational codes (coded as 0 if the motivation was not present and 1 if it was) as predictor variables and offense and severity measures as criterion variables. Scores were standardized before analyses were performed.

The results showed no significant effects of the attributed motivations on perceived offense ( p  >.05). For perceived severity, our results showed a statistically significant effect of online disinhibition motivation ( b =  2.15, p  =.035). Specifically, when the online disinhibition motivation was present according to the victims’ interpretation, they attributed greater severity to the described incident of cybervictimization. We found no significant effects of the other motivations on the severity measure ( p  >.05). Footnote 2

Although analysis of CDA has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years, less effort has been devoted to understanding the nature and perception of CDA in heterosexual relationships from the victims’ perspective. The present research aimed to examine the perceived offense and severity of a CDA incident and the aggressor’s motivations depending on the type of victimization and the participant’s gender.

First, our results showed that the perceived severity and offense may vary by the type of CDA suffered. Specifically, participants who recalled a situation of victimization by direct cyberaggression perceived more severity and offensiveness than participants who recalled an incident of victimization by cybercontrol. This could be due to the fact that direct aggression is a more explicit and recognizable CDA manifestation and implies intentionality to harm the partner (Borrajo et al., 2015b ). Therefore, it makes sense that participants were more sensitive to identifying the seriousness and offensiveness of this type of violence. Moreover, this finding is in line with previous research suggesting that cybercontrolling behaviors seem to be more socially acceptable forms of abuse, as they often do not constitute a clear violation of privacy (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011 ) and/or are interpreted as expressions of love and/or concern within the relationship (Nardi-Rodríguez et al., 2018 ).

Second, our results highlighted that gender also affected the victims’ perception of the CDA incident described. In particular, women expressed greater perceived severity and offense of the CDA victimization than men. These findings are consistent with studies noting that women report more severe emotional consequences to CDA than men (e.g., anguish, fear, anxiety, depression; Brown et al., 2022 ) and perceive greater difficulty in stopping or escaping the abusive situation (Stonard et al., 2017 ). At the same time, these contribute to Brown et al.’s ( 2022 ) work suggesting that young men tend not to perceive the severity of the impact of CDA on women.

More specifically, our results showed an interaction effect between the type of victimization and gender on perceived offense, indicating that women who described a situation of victimization by direct cyberaggression manifested greater offense than those who related an incident of victimization by cybercontrol; nevertheless, this effect was not observed for men. These results are in line with the findings of Donoso-Vazquez et al. ( 2018 ), who observed that there are no gender differences in the identification and perception of controlling behaviors against the partner, as these are highly normalized among young people. In contrast, women seem to be more sensitive to perceiving those behaviors aimed at harming the partner (i.e., direct cyberaggression) as offensive, which could be due to the fact that they are in a situation of vulnerability in the social and cultural framework and most frequently experience this type of violence from their partners (Reed et al., 2021b ). Moreover, this could be related to the fact that men tend to justify and normalize IPV and CDA to a greater extent than women (e.g., Martín-Fernández et al., 2018 ). However, more research is required in this field to substantiate the above claims.

Regarding reasons the victims attributed to their aggressor’s behavior, the content analysis results yielded two emerging motivations beyond those assessed by Borrajo et al. ( 2015b ). Specifically, we observed that victims frequently alluded to the factors of the virtual context favoring online disinhibition (e.g., the ability to hide behind a screen, accessibility and easy use of technologies, immediacy, or constant contact with the partner; Suler, 2004 ) to explain why their partners had exercised CDA against them. Thus, we called this new motivational category online disinhibition . These results are in line with previous research suggesting that, although CDA is a form of IPV, it comprises distinctive aspects that highlight the need for a specific approach to the problem (Stonard, 2020 ). Thus, the digital environment could be amplifying the occurrence of abusive behaviors in romantic relationships by favoring a scenario where young people experience a greater sense of freedom and disinhibition, without apparent restrictions (Stonard, 2020 ; Suler, 2004 ). In this sense, several participants indicated that their partners performed violent behaviors against them that they would less likely perform in a face-to-face context (e.g., “It is a quick tool accessible to everyone. Plus, face-to-face, he had a different demeanor”).

Likewise, we noted that another of the reasons for which some victims believed suffering cybervictimization was that their partners wanted to exert control and power over them, naming this category reestablishment of control and/or power . This result is consistent with previous research showing that exerting control over one’s partner is a common underlying motive for perpetrating IPV (Johnson & Ferraro, 2000 ). According to our results, some CDA victims considered that their aggressors had used technologies as an instrument of control and power within relationships because of their tools and facilities (e.g., immediacy, invisibility, or elimination of geographic and time barriers). In this sense, a partner who perceives themselves as less powerful may engage in CDA behaviors as a way to restore power and/or control within the relationship (Álvarez, 2012 ). As a consequence, the online environment could be generating a false sense of empowerment that, rather than favoring constructive conflict resolution strategies, could be fostering a culture of cyberabuse within the couple.

Moreover, our results also suggest that direct cyberaggression and control behaviors could have a different nature and purpose. According to the victims’ perception, direct cyberaggression (vs. cybercontrol) victimization occurred more frequently in situations of anger and/or frustration in the relationship and because of the feeling of disinhibition derived from the use of technological media. A plausible explanation could be that, in moments of anger, the characteristics of the online environment (e.g., invisibility, decreased empathy with the victim, or minimization of responsibility and consequences) could be encouraging people to employ direct cyberaggression behaviors against partners to harm them, which would be less likely to be carried out in a face-to-face context.

In contrast, participants interpreted that their aggressors’ cybercontrolling behaviors were more motivated by romantic jealousy or by the perpetrator’s own personality traits, such as insecure attachment, dependence on the partner or distrust. These results are consistent with empirical research showing that such factors (i.e., romantic jealousy, insecure attachment, distrust, emotional dependence) are robust predictors of controlling behaviors against partners in young people (e.g., see Frampton & Fox, 2018 ; Wright, 2017 ). In this sense, cybercontrol behaviors—indirect manifestations of aggression toward the partner (Borrajo et al., 2015b )—could be being employed as maladaptive and unhealthy strategies aimed at reducing individual levels of concern and emotional distress about the stability of the relationship (Reed et al., 2015 ).

Overall, our results with regard to the motivations that victims attributed to their abusers’ CDA behavior are consistent with the findings of Reed et al. ( 2021a ). Through a qualitative approach, these authors observed in a sample of adolescent students that there is a distinct pattern in the motivations reported for each CDA dimension from the perspective of the aggressors. For direct cyberaggression, both boys and girls reported primarily negative arousal and conflict motivations, particularly, “Because I was angry,” “Because I was upset,” and, “Because we were in a fight,” whereas, for cybercontrol, participants primarily reported being motivated by insecurity, including situations of jealousy and suspicion of infidelity. Therefore, our work builds on the findings of Reed et al. ( 2021a ) by providing consistent results but from the perspective of the victims and incorporating online disinhibition as a new motivation leading to the perpetration of direct cyberaggression.

Regarding gender differences in the perception of the offender’s motivations for CDA, our findings yielded a higher percentage of women (vs. men) who acknowledged experiencing CDA because their partners felt more uninhibited in the online context. This is congruent with empirical research showing that men tend to experience greater online disinhibition than women (e.g., Wang et al., 2021 ). Also, our results indicated that men (vs. women) more frequently reported that their partners cybervictimized them because of certain personality traits such as fear, emotional dependence, or insecurity. This finding is also in line with previous works (e.g., Stonard et al., 2017 ) suggesting that women in general seem to manifest greater concern than men about the care and maintenance of the relationship. According to social role theory (Eagly, 1987 ), the observed gender differences may arise from the set of complementary, stereotypical, unequal, and sexist roles traditionally assigned to women and men in their romantic and sexual relationships based on their biological sex—men are secure, powerful, competitive, and physically aggressive, whereas women are passive, emotionally dependent, and pleasing people who prioritize others. In this respect, women could be engaging in CDA as a maladaptive strategy to counteract discomfort (i.e., anxiety, worry, and insecurity) and/or maintain the relationship at all costs. Conversely, commitment to conventional masculine roles might prompt men to display uninhibited behavior in the online context involving CDA. However, it is essential to note that this is not the only plausible explanation and other alternative theoretical perspectives may be considered to interpret our results.

Finally, auxiliary analyses showed that, in general, the motivations that the victims attributed to their aggressors’ behavior did not influence the perception of offense and severity in the incident. We only found a significant effect of online disinhibition motivation on perceived severity, indicating that, when such motivation was attributed, victims perceived greater severity to the described situation of cybervictimization. That is, CDA victims might recognize the severity of violence to a greater extent when they perceive that their partner engaged in CDA against them because they felt more uninhibited through technology. This result could be encouraging in the sense that people might be aware, to some degree, of the severity and impact that misuse of digital media can have in the context of intimate partner relationships. However, given the nature of our study, we cannot draw firm conclusions from these results. More research is needed to address these issues and to discern whether there is an effect of online disinhibition motivation on perceived severity from the victim’s perspective or whether this is a false positive.

Implications for theory and practice

This work makes a novel contribution to the literature examining the perception of CDA from the victim’s perspective, which is still insufficient. Specifically, through a manipulation, our research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that victims’ perceptions about the motivations of their aggressors and the offense and severity of CDA victimization are influenced by both the type of behavior suffered and gender, so far unexplored. Also, following a qualitative approach, our study delves into the reasons or motives that CDA victims ascribed to the behavior their partners engaged in depending on the type of abuse suffered, suggesting that direct cyberaggression and cybercontrol behaviors have a different nature and impact. In addition, the gender differences that permeate our findings are in line with the assumptions that CDA is asymmetrical. Furthermore, besides the motivations observed by other authors in previous research (i.e., jealousy, anger/frustration, arguments/verbal confrontation, and personality; Borrajo et al., 2015b ), we noted that two new motives for CDA emerged in the victims’ answers: reestablishment of control and/or power and online disinhibition.

This study also has some important practical implications for psychology professionals. On the one hand, our findings could encourage clinical psychologists working with CDA victims to focus on understanding the context in which CDA behaviors arise as well as the victims’ perception and interpretation of the violent situation and its possible impact, also taking into account the role of the type of CDA suffered and gender. Likewise, our work could serve as a basis for the development of psychoeducational programs aimed at the effective prevention of CDA and the responsible use of digital media to promote healthy and quality relationships from an early age. Finally, data on young adults’ views about the motivations that constitute CDA and their perception of severity and offense can also be used to inform the design of more effective measurement instruments. Our research derives the need to develop and validate instruments that contemplate not only the different CDA behaviors experienced by victims but their nature and the disparate impact that those could have according to gender.

Limitations and directions for future research

This study has some limitations that should be noted. First, the critical incident technique may capture a limited picture of participants’ perceptions of cybervictimization experiences by referring to a specific event (i.e., the recalled abusive incident) and may trigger recall biases. However, this retrospective technique has been widely used in social psychology, denoting its effectiveness and strong external validity in conflict or past situations (e.g., Alonso-Ferres et al., 2021 ). Moreover, we manipulated the type of victimization in two levels (i.e., direct cyberaggression and cybercontrol), thereby allowing us to apply more control over our findings. Nevertheless, future researchers should replicate our results using experimental designs that allow for drawing more robust causal conclusions. Second, we did not control for the potential effects of certain cognitive factors (e.g., normalization, attentional biases, cognitive distortions, cultural biases) on CDA recognition; hence, results and conclusions derived from our work must be taken cautiously. Besides, it should be taken into account that, regarding sensitive topics like CDA, respondents may be less likely to endorse abusive behavior and may be susceptible to social desirability (Lu et al., 2021 ), which makes it difficult to obtain large samples. Due to the social stigma surrounding CDA, future studies could contribute to research in this area by implementing innovative methods like dyadic research designs, which consider both romantic partners. Third, the sample selection was carried out by nonprobability snowball sampling via several social network sites (SNSs), and we only selected Spanish participants with a heterosexual orientation and between 18 and 35 years old. Thus, we cannot obtain generalized conclusions from our results, because the sample is not representative of the population. Future researchers should corroborate our findings using larger samples and random sampling to obtain a heterogeneous sample in terms of, for example, age, nationality, sexual orientation, and cultural values. In this respect, recent works have also indicated that CDA experiences may vary between partner categories defined by sexual orientation (heterosexual vs. non-heterosexual) and gender identity (cisgender vs. non-cisgender; e.g., Butler et al., 2023 ). Moreover, variables such as gender social norms (López-Zafra et al., 2008 ) and SNS use (Statista, 2020 ) may differ across countries, so it would be also interesting to carry out cross-cultural research. In particular, we encourage other researchers to build on our findings by investigating the potential influence of traditional gender mandates (i.e., roles, behaviors, and expectations associated with being a man or woman) on victims’ perceptions of CDA episodes. In addition, it would be interesting to explore whether attribution of the causes of CDA and/or the perceived offensiveness and severity of such violence could influence victims’ coping and consequences, depending on the type of CDA behavior experienced and gender.

Conclusions

The culture of cyberviolence is taking root in relationships at an early age, with the risk of it becoming normalized. This research provides novel data on perceptions of CDA incidents within heterosexual relationships from the victim’s perspective. Specifically, our findings contribute to the understanding of the causal attributions and perceptions that victims of such violence have of their aggressors’ behavior. In general, the results show that such interpretation and/or causal attribution, as well as the perception of offense and severity of CDA, may vary according to the type of abuse suffered (direct cyberaggression vs. cybercontrol) and gender. Our work could help psychological professionals develop specific interventions in CDA considering the specific characteristics of each type of abuse as well as the role of gender identity. Moreover, we hope that our findings will encourage other researchers to explore new avenues of work that delve deeper into the psychological mechanisms that influence CDA victims’ perception of violent events and how this might shape their coping strategies.

Data availability

These studies’ designs and their analysis were not pre-registered. Materials, data, and scripts are publicly available and can be accessed at [OSF].

We delimited the age range of young adults based on the term emerging adulthood coined by Arnett ( 2000 ). It refers to the new developmental stage that emerges as a result of environmental factors (i.e., sociocultural and economic) which seem to be delaying the acquisition of the traditional markers of adulthood (e.g., marriage, parenthood, financial independence, and home ownership). Likewise, previous researchers have used this same standard to delimit the stage of emerging adulthood (e.g., Sánchez-Hernández et al., 2020 ).

When linear regression analyses were performed controlling for the effects of the relationship described in the critical incident (current vs. past) and the frequency of CDA victimization, included in the first step, the effect of motivations on offending remains non-significant ( p  >.05), and the significant effect of online disinhibition motivation on severity disappears ( p  >.05).

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Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. This research was financially supported by the “Violence against women: Implications for their psychosocial wellbeing (PID2021-123125OB-I00)” project funded by the MCIN/AEI/ https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033/ and FEDER, UE, as well as a Grant from the FPU Program of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities awarded to the first author (FPU18/00756). The funding sources have no such involvement in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication.

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Sánchez-Hernández, M.D., Herrera, M.C. & Expósito, F. Perception of cyberdating abuse from the victims’ perspective: effect of the type of suffered behavior and gender. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05985-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05985-8

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