Is it about me or my partner’s personality? Personality traits as correlates and predictors of jealousy in couples

Topalović, Nevena and Nedeljković, Boban (2025) Is it about me or my partner’s personality? Personality traits as correlates and predictors of jealousy in couples. Primenjena psihologija, 18 (1). pp. 43-69. ISSN 2334-7287

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Abstract

A high number of studies on romantic jealousy in heterosexual couples has accumulated in the past decades, including those intended to explain how this phenomenon relates to personality traits. This study aimed to advance current knowledge by using the HEXACO model supplemented by the Disintegration trait and presenting novel findings on how these traits in couples relate to their own and their partners’ (cognitive, behavioral, and emotional) jealousy while also assessing traits’ explanatory power for each aspect of jealousy. The HEXACO-PI-R Inventory, the DELTA-20 instrument, and the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale were administered to the sample of 400 heterosexual participants (200 couples dating or being married), and the correlations and the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) were applied. As the APIM showed, both women and men tend to have higher levels of cognitive and emotional jealousy if they score lower on Honesty-humility. Women tend to achieve higher scores in cognitive and emotional jealousy if they score higher in Emotionality. Men tend to score higher in all aspects of jealousy if their partners score lower on Agreeableness. Low Openness in men may contribute to behavioral jealousy in women, while high Disintegration in women could facilitate the development of emotional jealousy in men. In general, the effects of a partner’s personality traits on jealousy in women were weaker compared to the effects on jealousy in men.

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