Emotional and behavioral responses to romantic jealousy expressions

This study focused on the emotional and behavioral responses experienced and expressed by targets of jealousy expressions. Participants (N equals;226) reported their perceived emotion intensity and likelihood that they would respond with specific messages in response to romantic jealousy expressions. The results showed that targets of romantic jealousy expressions responded with both positive and negative emotions and messages, experienced positive emotions most intensely in response to positive communication, negative affect expression, and suspicious behavior, experienced negative emotions most intensely to violence, negative communication, suspicious behavior, and manipulation attempts, responded with integrative behavior in a variety of conditions, acted most aggressively when faced with violent expressions, and that the valence of targets’ emotions predicted the direction of their responses.