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Friendship Jealousy in Young Adolescents: Individual Differences and
Links to Sex, Self-Esteem, Aggression, and Social Adjustment
Jeffrey G. Parker
The Pennsylvania State University
Christine M. Low
E. P. Bradley Hospital, Brown University School of Medicine
Alisha R. Walker
Sacred Heart University
Bridget K. Gamm
University of Kansas
Children’s vulnerability to jealousy surrounding their best friends was explored in 2 studies. Study 1
involved 94 adolescents who reported on their friendship jealousy on a newly created measure. Results
indicated that the jealousy measure had sound psychometric properties and produced individual differ-
ences that were robust over time and free from socially desirable responding. As expected, girls and
adolescents with low self-worth reported the greatest friendship jealousy. Study 2 involved 399 young
adolescents and extended the measurement of self-report jealousy to a broader age range. In addition,
Study 2 included assessments of jealousy provided by friends and other peers. Self- and peer-reported
jealousy were only modestly associated and had somewhat distinct correlates. Structural modeling
revealed that young adolescents’ reputation for friendship jealousy was linked to behaving aggressively
and to broader peer adjustment difficulties. Both self- and peer-reported jealousy contributed to
loneliness.
Because they are normally embedded in larger groups and
networks of peer relationships, friendships in early adolescence are
routinely subject to outside forces. At times, this influence is
presumably positive. For example, when third parties recognize
and respond to pairs of young adolescents as friends, they can
cement the partners’ identification with and commitment to one
another (Klein & Milardo, 1993). Outsiders can also positively
influence what happens within friendships in more direct ways.
For example, third parties can act as mediators to resolve disputes
between friends (e.g., Simmons, 2002). However, outsiders are not
invariably welcomed in friendships and can also be significant
sources of tension and conflict between friends (Asher, Parker, &
Walker, 1996; Kless, 1992). For example, young adolescents with
multiple friends can become caught in competing friendship loy-
alties and demands. These binds can lead to perceptions of ineq-
uities, betrayal, and violations of expectations within specific
relationships (Selman, 1980). Even when such dilemmas can be
avoided, the time involved and the emotional commitments that
partners make to outside peers may still create problems for
friends. In particular, if young adolescents perceive outsiders as
threatening the quality, uniqueness, or survival of their friendships,
feelings of jealousy can arise and pose challenges to the partner,
the perceived interloper, and perhaps the encompassing peer
group.
Although research on children’s and young adolescents’ friend-
ships has increased dramatically in the past decade, little is known
about the forces exerted on friendship dyads as a result of their
position in a broader network of relationships because researchers
have generally studied individual friendships in isolation from
other relationships and individuals (Lansford & Parker, 1999). A
better understanding of the issues that surface in children’s friend-
ships around third parties is important for at least two reasons.
First, it would further understanding of why these relationships
take the forms they do by accounting for influences that are not
strictly dyadic or individual (Duck, 1993). Second, third parties
present young adolescents with significant challenges to their
ability to manage their relationships. As such, they introduce a
potentially important source of variability in the friendship expe-
riences of individuals. An increased understanding of which indi-
viduals handle these challenges effectively would highlight poten-
tial targets of interventions aimed at increasing the quality or
stability of children’s friendship participation.
The purpose of the present research was to explore one impli-
cation of the social context of friendship, namely, potential indi-
vidual variability in young adolescents’ dispositions to react with
jealousy to their close friends’ relationships with other peers. To
date, virtually no empirical data exist on young adolescents’ jeal-
ousy over friends. However, a beginning understanding of this
issue can be built on the rich theoretical and empirical literature
that exists on jealousy in adults. With adults, jealousy is commonly
conceptualized as a negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioral
reaction triggered by a valued partner’s actual or anticipated in-
terest in or relationship with another person who is regarded as an
interloper (e.g., Guerrero & Andersen, 1998; Hupka, 1981;
Jeffrey G. Parker, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State
University; Christine M. Low, E. P. Bradley Hospital, Brown University
School of Medicine; Alisha R. Walker, Department of Psychology, Sacred
Heart University; Bridget K. Gamm, Department of Psychology, Univer-
sity of Kansas.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeffrey
G. Parker, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University,
417 Bruce V. Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802-3104. E-mail:
jgp4@psu.edu
Developmental Psychology Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association
2005, Vol. 41, No. 1, 235–250 0012-1649/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.41.1.235
235
Salovey & Rodin, 1989; Sharpsteen & Kirkpatrick, 1997). Gener-
ally, jealousy results when individuals feel that a partner’s rela-
tionship with someone else threatens their own, existing relation-
ship with the partner. Individuals who are jealous may feel they are
in danger of being replaced in the relationship by the interloper,
thereby losing the relationship entirely. However, even when they
understand that their own relationship with the partner can con-
tinue, jealous individuals may be distressed at the expected dim-
inution of the quality of the relationship, which they perceive as
arising from the need to share the relationship rewards or privi-
leged access to the partner with others (Mathes, Adams, & Davies,
1985).
Adults experiencing jealousy typically report strong, but
blended, emotions, mostly involving anger, sadness, and some
anxiety and embarrassment (e.g., Bringle & Buunk, 1985; Pfeiffer
& Wong, 1989; Salovey & Rodin, 1989; Sharpsteen, 1993). Fur-
ther, evidence suggests that because jealous individuals are in a
state of high uncertainty regarding their partner’s relational com-
mitment, their cognitive assessments of others may be distorted
and they may report preoccupying and ruminative thought (Afifi &
Reichert, 1996; Carson & Cupach, 2000; Guerrero, Andersen,
Jorgensen, Spitzberg, & Eloy, 1995). Finally, both theoretical
arguments (e.g., Salovey & Rodin, 1988; White, 1981; White &
Mullen, 1989) and empirical data (e.g., Bers & Rodin, 1984;
DeSteno & Salovey, 1997; Mathes et al., 1985; Salovey & Rodin,
1984; Sharpsteen, 1995), support the assertion that what jealous
individuals find particularly distressing is not only the interloper’s
infringement on the relationship but also the implied unfavorable
social comparison of themselves with the interloper and the in-
ferred rejection by the partner. As Guerrero et al. (1995, p. 274)
aptly noted, “Jealous individuals believe that their partners have
compared them to the rival and that they have somehow failed to
‘measure up.’” Thus, jealous circumstances are especially threat-
ening to self-esteem, and individuals with low self-esteem are
especially vulnerable to jealousy (see Salovey & Rodin, 1989).
Although the experience and expression of jealousy depend to
some extent on situational factors, robust individual differences in
the vulnerability to jealousy also exist among adults. Individual
differences in vulnerability to jealousy have proven relatively
stable with time and across specific contexts (Bringle, Renner,
Terry, & Davis, 1983) and bear a relation to individuals’ behavior
in contrived, analog settings involving relationship threat (Mathes,
Phillips, Skowran, & Dick, 1982). More important, jealousy is a
major contributor to relationship dissatisfaction (Andersen, Eloy,
Guerrero, & Spitzberg, 1995; Bringle, Roach, Andier, & Even-
beck, 1979) and, in some instances, to relationship conflict and
violence (Hansen, 1991; Stets & Pirog-Good, 1987). In addition,
highly jealous adults have also been found to be self-deprecating,
unhappy, anxious, externally controlled, and dogmatic (see Brin-
gle, 1981) and fearful, suspicious, and insecure (Carson & Cupach,
2000; Guerrero & Andersen, 1998; Sharpsteen & Kirkpatrick,
1997). Finally, and consistent with arguments that negative social
comparison plays an important role in jealousy, consistent, albeit
moderate, negative relationships between self-esteem and disposi-
tions to jealousy have been reported (see Bringle & Buunk, 1985).
Jealousy can occur at any age and in the context of any valued
relationship characterized by a degree of intimacy, commitment,
and dependence, including parent-child relationships (e.g., Elle-
stad & Stets, 1998; Masciuch & Kienapple, 1993) and friendships
(e.g., Aune & Comstock, 1991; Clanton & Kosin, 1991; Guerrero
& Andersen, 1998; Parrott, 1991). Nonetheless, almost all research
on jealousy has been conducted with adults and predictably has
centered on feelings of threat surrounding romantic partners. An
exception is research by Selman (e.g., Selman, 1980; Selman &
Schultz, 1990), who noted the salience of jealousy in children’s
and young adolescents’ narratives about friendship and speculated
on its developmental basis. According to Selman, individuals
rarely express jealousy over friends’ activities with others before
early adolescence unless this extradyadic involvement has obvious
and immediate negative effects on their own welfare. This is
because these young children do not readily understand how
specific activities between individuals contribute to broader feel-
ings of affection and commitment and thus do not normally ap-
preciate the implications of their friends’ activities with others for
their own relationship. With further development, this understand-
ing grows, and suspicion and jealousy become more common in
friendships. Older children, too, are more likely to make social
comparisons with the third party and thus more likely to react more
negatively to third parties because a friend’s interest in someone
else implies a personal failure on the part of oneself. In Selman’s
view, jealousy over friends remains a problem for most individuals
until early or middle adolescence and then abates as subsequent
social-cognitive advances help older children take a more balanced
view in which they recognize that no single relationship, no matter
its quality, can meet all the interpersonal needs of an individual.
In sum, little is confidently known about the influence of out-
siders on relations between friends, including young adolescents’
vulnerability to jealousy surrounding friends. This is true despite a
rich conceptual and empirical literature on jealousy in adults.
Accordingly, our overarching goal in the present work was to
conceptualize and assess individual differences in friendship jeal-
ousy and to provide a beginning understanding of their correlates
and significance. Two studies are presented. Study 1 introduces a
self-report measure for assessing young adolescents’ vulnerability
to jealousy over their friends and provides initial evidence of the
reliability and validity of assessments with this measure in a
sample of adolescent youth, including the link between jealousy
and children’s perceptions of self-worth. Potential sex differences
in jealous dispositions are also examined in Study 1. Study 2
extends the appraisal of the psychometric properties of the newly
developed measure of friendship jealousy to a new sample with a
broader age range and continues the exploration of sex differences.
It is important to note that Study 2 also explores the broader social
significance of friendship jealousy by exploring young adoles-
cents’ reputations for friendship jealousy with their friends and
other peers and how these relate to self-reported jealousy, a spe-
cific form of aggressive behavior, and individuals’ broader social
adjustment.
Study 1
Little attention has been focused on the important question of
whether individual young adolescents display stable differences in
their tendencies to react with jealousy to their friends’ activities
with others. With adults, a number of effective self-report scales
have been developed to identify individuals who grow jealous
more readily than others (see Bringle & Buunk, 1985; Pfeiffer &
Wong, 1989). In these assessments, respondents are asked to
236
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
imagine their partners in a variety of semi-intimate social circum-
stances with other potential partners (e.g., a business trip, a lun-
cheon, at work) and indicate the extent to which the situation
makes them feel jealous. The circumstances in these vignettes
allow for benign interpretation of the behavior of the partner and
others in the setting, but individuals disposed to jealousy perceive
relationship threat and report greater jealousy and subjective dis-
tress than do typical individuals.
The primary objective of Study 1 was to introduce and evaluate
a measure of vulnerability to friendship jealousy for young ado-
lescents, the Friendship Jealousy Questionnaire, modeled after the
self-report measurement approach used effectively with adults.
Drawing parallels to the literature on adults in romantic relation-
ships, we anticipated that children would vary systematically in
their thresholds for jealousy over friends. To tap these differences,
the Friendship Jealousy Questionnaire assesses individuals’ readi-
ness to report being upset and made jealous by commonplace, but
potentially mildly provoking, contacts between their closest best
friend and other peers.
The Friendship Jealousy Questionnaire was developed in three
steps. First, to ensure content validity, we conducted pilot inter-
views with individuals in the targeted age range to identify a larger
pool of developmentally salient social situations in which jealousy
over a best friend was common. Situations were culled that did not
meet the conceptual requirements for inclusion (e.g., situations
with blatant rejection or best friend betrayal, peripheral interloper
involvement). Next, we drafted a short, hypothetical vignette for
each situation by stripping peripheral details while retaining the
crux of the interpersonal threat, namely, that in all instances,
events unfolded in such a way that the actions or presence of the
other same-sex individual or individuals posed a threat to the
exclusivity of the established best friendship. The behavior of the
best friend in all vignettes was ambiguous. That is, although there
was no overt rejection of the target by the best friend, it was
possible for the respondent to interpret events as rejection by the
friend or at least to view the friend as receptive to the interloper’s
advances. Finally, these refined vignettes were then administered
to additional pilot subjects, who were asked to indicate how
jealousy provoking the vignettes would be. Vignettes that were
confusing or that showed little variability in responses were elim-
inated, which resulted in a final pool of 15 primary items. A first
goal of Study 1 was to examine the internal consistency of young
adolescents’ reports of jealousy across these items and to assess
the test–retest stability of jealousy scores computed from these
items.
In ordinary usage, especially with adults, feelings of jealousy
may carry stigma, and individuals can be motivated to minimize
this experience or present themselves in the most favorable light
(White & Mullen, 1989). Accordingly, we took two further steps
to partially address the issue of the influence of socially desirable
responding. First, young adolescents’ reports of their characteristic
jealousy were examined in relation to a standardized assessment of
tendencies toward socially desirable responding for a subset of
participants. We anticipated a modest and nonsignificant positive
association between these assessments. Second, an alternative ver-
sion of the measure was constructed for this study and adminis-
tered to a random subset of participants. In this version, the phrase
“I would feel jealous” in primary items was replaced by the phrase
“I would be upset.” Pilot interviews suggested that young adoles-
cents often used these terms interchangeably, yet some felt more
comfortable with the latter phrase. Hence, we sought to evaluate
whether individuals who received the “upset” version of the mea-
sure would admit to greater jealousy than those who were asked
explicitly about feeling “jealous” and whether this change would
affect boys and girls differentially.
In addition, Study 1 provides a beginning understanding of one
putative source of such differences, namely, differences in percep-
tions of self-worth. We hypothesized that children with low self-
worth would be more likely than children with high self-worth to
draw strong negative social comparisons between themselves and
others (Harter, 1999) and to expect and perceive signs of flagging
interest in their friends and to overreact to outsiders with feelings
of jealousy.
Finally, in Study 1 we also explored potential sex differences in
the disposition toward friendship jealousy. We anticipated sex
differences in jealousy partly on the basis of recent research
indicating that, unlike boys, girls report that the interference of
third parties is a significant source of tension between friends and
a primary basis for the breakup of friendships (Ludlow et al.,
1999). Moreover, past research suggests that girls have deeper,
more intimate friendships than do boys (Maccoby, 1990). Given
the greater degree of investment by girls than by boys in specific
friendships, we hypothesized that the loss of friends to interlopers
might be more threatening, and hence, more potentially upsetting
to girls than to boys.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Participants included 135 (68 girls, 67 boys) young adolescents in ninth
grade. The racial and socioeconomic composition of the sample was
overwhelmingly Caucasian and low to middle class in socioeconomic
status, reflecting the makeup of the surrounding rural, northeastern com-
munities from which the sample was drawn. The data for 94 participants
(48 girls, 46 boys) were collected in the spring and early summer in
conjunction with a multiyear, longitudinal study of family relationships
and communication during adolescence (Darling, Dowdy, Van Horn, &
Caldwell, 1999). Specifically, project records were used to locate all
families who had participated in earlier annual waves of data collection.
One hundred forty-three families were located and sent letters inviting
them to continue involvement by participating in a third wave of data
collection that included the measures of interest in this study. Families that
consented were mailed packets of questionnaires to complete. Measures for
the young adolescents that were relevant to this project included one of
several alternative versions of the jealousy questionnaire and a self-worth
questionnaire. Instructions emphasized that the young adolescent should
complete the questionnaires privately, and independently, in his or her
home. Completed questionnaires were retrieved approximately 1 week
later by research assistants who arrived at the participants’ homes to
conduct interviews with the young adolescents in conjunction with unre-
lated aspects of the longitudinal project.
Because their participation in the broader, longitudinal project precluded
these initial participants from participating in the planned evaluation of the
test–retest stability of the jealousy questionnaire, an additional 41 partici-
pants were recruited along with, but outside of, the recruitment for the
broader project. We began recruiting of these participants by reviewing
newspaper birth announcement archives to locate individuals in the tar-
geted age range who still resided in the approximate geographic area in
which the balance of the participants resided. On the basis of this search,
we initially sent approximately 60 families a brief letter describing the
237
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
study and inviting their participation, and then we telephoned them later to
ascertain their willingness to participate. Families that indicated such
willingness were scheduled for a home interview and mailed a further,
detailed consent form. During the approximately 30-min home interview,
participants completed the primary jealousy questionnaire and a self-worth
questionnaire and were scheduled for a retest phone interview approxi-
mately 2 weeks later. During the phone interview, participants were read-
ministered the jealousy measure (only) by a trained assistant who recorded
their responses. Analyses did not reveal any differences on any measure
between these 41 individuals and the balance of the participants. Thus,
except for the analysis of test–retest stability that necessarily focused only
on these participants, all other analyses were based on the combined
samples.
Measures
Friendship Jealousy Questionnaire (FJQ). The FJQ consists of 27
short vignettes in which respondents are presented with hypothetical social
situations involving a specific best friend and are asked to imagine and
report their emotional reactions. As noted, 15 items are primary items,
which also feature one or more hypothetical potential interlopers who are
described as peer acquaintances. For each of the primary vignettes, respon-
dents are asked to indicate the level of jealousy they would feel, using a
5-point scale ranging from not at all true of me (0) to really true of me (4).
Jealousy scores are computed by averaging responses across primary items.
The remaining 12 vignettes do not portray the involvement of a third
child. These items were included to discourage acquiescent or contrarian
response sets. Like the primary items, the distractor items involve social
situations (i.e., an interdependence of the target with their best friend).
However, the events portrayed in the distractor items are otherwise quite
diverse and were chosen to evoke a variety of specific emotions other than
jealousy (e.g., sadness, happiness, and anger). Each of these items is also
worded as a declarative statement. The respondent is asked to indicate how
likely it is that he or she would feel the emotion presented in the scenario
on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all true of me (0) to really true of me
(4).
To examine the impact of phrasing on children’s willingness to admit
distress over their friend’s relationships with others, we also constructed
for this study an alternative version of the FJQ in which the phrase “feel
jealous” in primary items was replaced by a phrase with putatively less
negative connotations (“feel upset”). This version was administered to a
random subset of 47 (21 boys and 26 girls) of the participants in the larger
study.
Socially desirable responding. Estimates of tendencies toward socially
desirable responding were available from archival data for a subsample of
participants in the larger project. Specifically, 49 (27 girls, 22 boys)
participants completed items from the Children’s Social Desirability Scale
(CSD; Crandall, Crandall, & Katkovsky, 1965) as part of a questionnaire
1 year prior to the current assessments. Items on this scale appear as
true–false statements about the self and are designed to tap children’s
socially desirable responding motivated by a fear of disapproval. In its
original form, the full CSD scale contains 48 items. However, for brevity,
only the first 20 items of the measure were included in the assessment.
Internal consistency was high (
␣
⫽ .90).
Perceptions of self-worth. Participants’ perceptions of self-worth were
assessed using the 5-item Global Self-Worth subscale of the Self Percep-
tion Profile for Adolescents (SPPA; Harter, 1988). However, the format of
the SPPA was altered slightly to make the response scale consistent with
the response scales used on the remaining questionnaires in the battery.
Specifically, in the original format, respondents are presented with items
consisting of contrasting statements representing positive versus negative
self-assessments and are asked to decide which of these broad alternatives
is most like themselves. In the present study, however, items were pre-
sented as declarative statements, and respondents were asked to indicate
how well each statement fit them on a scale from not at all like me (1) to
really like me (4). Internal consistency among items was adequate (
␣
⫽
.79).
Results
Psychometric Properties of the FJQ
Item properties and distribution. All 15 primary items dem-
onstrated excellent properties and distributions. For the primary
version with actual jealous language, item means ranged from 2.07
to 2.74, and all items displayed excellent statistics for kurtosis and
skew. For the alternative version featuring the word upset, item
means ranged from 1.95 to 2.82, and all items again displayed
excellent statistics for kurtosis and skew. Likewise, nonparametric
testing revealed that the distributions of the summary scores for the
jealous (M ⫽ 2.39, SD ⫽ 0.92) and upset (M ⫽ 2.23, SD ⫽ 0.80)
versions were both approximately normal (Kolmogorov-Smirnov
Zs ⫽ .70 and .69, respectively; asymptotic exact ps ⫽ .72).
Internal consistency. Internal consistency across the 15 items
was high and identical for both versions of the jealousy scale (
␣
⫽
.93). For both versions, every primary item correlated highly with
the corrected item total, and internal consistency could not be
improved by deleting any items. In addition, internal consistency
did not differ by sex for either version, with no estimate for any
group dropping below
␣
⫽ .92.
Test–retest stability. Analysis of the available test–retest data
for the primary version using actual jealous language (only) indi-
cated high short-term stability in scores, r(39) ⫽ .94, p ⬍ .01.
Test–retest correlations calculated separately for boys and girls
indicated that reliability did not differ by sex: r(19) ⫽ .96 for girls
versus r(20) ⫽ .92 for boys.
Socially Desirable Responding
Jealousy was unrelated to tendencies toward socially desirable
responding when items asked about jealousy directly, r(23) ⫽ .03,
ns. However, when items referred instead to being upset, a modest
but significant negative correlation was observed, r(26) ⫽⫺.29,
p ⬍ .05.
Influence of Wording and Sex
A 2 (sex) ⫻ 2 (item wording) between-groups analysis of
variance indicated that young adolescents’ reports of jealousy did
not increase as a result of substituting the term upset (M ⫽ 2.23,
SD ⫽ 0.80) for the potentially pejorative term jealous (M ⫽ 2.39,
SD ⫽ 0.91) in items, F(1, 110) ⫽ 1.48, ns. There was also no
interaction of wording with sex, F(1, 110) ⫽ 1.33, ns. By contrast,
a significant main effect of sex was present, F(1, 110) ⫽ 4.19, p ⬍
.02. Girls (M ⫽ 2.49, SD ⫽ 0.85) reported significantly greater
jealousy than did boys (M ⫽ 2.15, SD ⫽ 0.87).
Jealousy and Self-Worth
Hierarchical multiple regression was used to evaluate whether
self-worth predicted jealousy and whether this hypothesized rela-
tion generalized across sex and alternate versions of the question-
naire. Specifically, dummy codes for sex and version were created
and regressed on jealousy scores along with self-worth scores and
all two- and three-way interactions among these predictors. These
238
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
analyses reproduced the analysis of variance results indicating a
sex difference in jealousy favoring girls (

⫽ .18, p ⬍ .05) and the
absence of an overall association between jealousy and version
(

⫽ .07, ns)oraSex⫻ Version interaction (

⫽ .12, ns).
However, and more important, self-worth was a significant, neg-
ative predictor of jealousy (

⫽⫺.19, p ⬍ .05) even after we
controlled for sex and version. After these lower order predictors
were controlled for, no significant higher order interactions involv-
ing self-worth with sex (

⫽⫺.03, ns), version (

⫽ .08, ns), or
both sex and version (

⫽ .12, ns) were present. The final, reduced
model including only the significant sex and self-worth predictors
was significant, F(2, 111) ⫽ 3.69, p ⬍ .01, but yielded a modest
R
2
of .08.
Discussion
Results indicate that the effort to construct a reliable, stable, and
conceptually clear measure of friendship jealousy was successful.
The items displayed good psychometric properties, and the overall
scores were well distributed, with high internal consistency for
both sexes. Furthermore, jealousy scores appeared stable over
short stretches of time at least. Indeed, the test–retest stability of
jealousy scores compares favorably with those reported for other
measures that assess relationship dispositions (e.g., Downey &
Feldman, 1996; Parker & Asher, 1993). The stability of these
assessments is important, as it suggests that the measure taps
young adolescents’ generalized dispositions toward jealousy rather
than the more fleeting, situation-dependent feelings of jealousy
that all young adolescents occasionally experience.
Individuals who are habitually concerned about making a so-
cially desirable impression on others did not report less jealousy
when they were asked directly about this emotional experience.
Although we had surmised that admitting to being generally upset
would be less potentially stigmatizing than admitting specifically
to jealousy in the same circumstances, the opposite was true. A
modest negative association between jealousy and concern with
social desirability was evident for the “upset” version. Taken
together, these findings appear to suggest that young adolescents
are not quite as advanced as we surmised in their developing
understanding of prevailing cultural attitudes toward the term
jealousy; however, like adults, they recognize that this emotional
experience is generally frowned upon when it is described in terms
that are more colloquial, such as being upset. It should be noted
that because our assessment of social desirability was collected in
a separate context and a full year earlier than our assessment of
jealousy, we likely underestimated this association to some extent.
Even so, the influence of a socially desirable set on responding
appears no greater for this assessment of jealousy than for other
self-assessments at this age. Likewise, the appraisal of the effect of
substituting the word upset for the word jealous suggested that
reports were not altered importantly by changing the language of
the items to avoid using the word jealous explicitly. However,
substituting the word upset does introduce interpretation ambigu-
ities, as individuals who report being made upset by their friend’s
activities with others need not necessarily be expressing concern
over the future of the relationship. Therefore upset and jealous are
not interchangeable, and we recommend that researchers who use
this measure in the future retain the original, jealous wording.
Nonetheless, our findings are reassuring in that they suggest that
researchers who use this measure in the future need not be greatly
worried that their respondents’ reports of jealousy are strongly
colored by their fears of social stigmatization.
Although the FJQ has sound psychometric properties for both
boys and girls, girls in general reported higher levels of jealousy
surrounding friends. An initial concern is that this difference
emerged because boys, in particular, attached stigma to jealousy
and underreported their vulnerability to this feeling. This interpre-
tation is not consistent with our analysis of the effects of substi-
tuting upset for jealous in the items. Although admitting to being
upset with a friend carries less stigma than admitting to jealousy
specifically, substituting this term did not bring boys’ responses
closer to the levels reported by girls. However, if boys are more
reluctant than girls to express emotions of any type surrounding
friends, it would not be surprising for boys to report lower upset as
well as lower jealousy in the circumstances we tapped. Thus, the
possibility that this sex difference represents a reporting artifact
cannot be completely dismissed.
Nonetheless, our findings are consistent with findings on jeal-
ousy in studies with adults (Guerrero, Eloy, Jorgensen, &
Andersen, 1993) and with mounting other evidence that young
adolescent girls are especially vigilant and vulnerable to circum-
stances that interfere with the quality of their experiences with
friends (e.g., Brown, Way, & Duff, 1999; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995;
Leaper, 1994; Way, 1998). Thus, if future research confirms that
this sex difference is specific to jealousy and not a simple reporting
artifact, its basis warrants careful study. In part, cultural norms
may set the stage for greater jealousy among girls by dictating
greater expectations of exclusivity in these relationships. Indeed,
despite only mixed empirical support, even many scholarly ac-
counts of children’s friendships repeat the popular stereotype that
girls have fewer friends than do boys (see Lansford & Parker,
1999; Way, 1998; Underwood, 2003). As a group, then, girls may
be expressing greater jealousy around friends because they have
internalized broader norms that stress nonreceptivity to outsiders
as a hallmark of girls’ relationships.
It is also likely that actual differences in the nature of boys’ and
girls’ friendships contribute to some extent to jealousy. Consistent
data support the conclusion that, beginning in preadolescence, girls
have more open and self-disclosing relationships with their friends
than do boys and rely more heavily on their friends for emotional
support than do boys (see Beal, 1994). Compared with boys, girls
engage in more thinking about their friends when separated from
them (Richards, Crowe, Larson, & Swarr, 1998) and expect and
receive more kindness, loyalty, commitment, and empathy from
friends (Sharabany, Gershoni, & Hofman, 1981). In view of what
is at stake, it may be understandable that girls also experience
greater jealousy around these relationships than do boys. In the
future, researchers should directly assess how jealousy varies with
the nature of friendships and young adolescents’ dependence on
them, and whether such factors account for the link between sex
and jealousy.
Young adolescents of both sexes with lower self-worth reported
greater vulnerability to jealousy surrounding friends. This pattern
was predicted and is consistent with findings produced by research
on adults in romantic contexts (Mathes et al., 1985). As noted, it is
likely that chronically poor self-esteem contributes to habitual
jealousy, because individuals with negative self-appraisals place
less trust in their friends’ commitment to them and interpret even
239
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
the most pedestrian activities that friends do with others as fulfill-
ing their expectations of friendship betrayal and defection. By
comparison, individuals with higher self-regard may feel little
competition with their friends’ other friends or may, in the absence
of evidence to the contrary, offer benign interpretations of their
friends’ activities with others. Because our findings are correla-
tional, we cannot verify this interpretation directly. Moreover,
young adolescents no doubt feel badly about themselves when they
interpret their partner’s friendships with others as a rejection of
themselves or when their friends’ activities with others signal their
own shortcomings by pointing to how much more skilled, attrac-
tive, personable, and so on a peer is by comparison (e.g., White,
1981). Thus, the direction of effects is likely reciprocal. Reciprocal
relations would be in keeping with theoretical formulations of
self-construction that stress the close and self-perpetuating ties
among social exclusion or rejection, social comparison processes,
and self-evaluation (e.g., Harter, 1999; Leary, 1990) and would
suggest that it would be of benefit to incorporate experimental and
longitudinal research designs into future investigations.
Interestingly, although consistent with expectations, the magni-
tude of the association between jealousy and self-worth was low.
The modest size of this association is puzzling and merits further
investigation. It is significant that our assessment tapped children’s
global self-worth rather than domain-specific evaluations. Recent
research suggests that it is important to distinguish between self-
evaluations that represent global characteristics of the individual’s
sense of adequacy and those that reflect the individual’s sense of
adequacy in particular domains, such as the individual’s scholastic
competence, physical appearance, or social relationships (Harter,
1999). In many instances, global measures may fail to yield results
as robust as those tapping self-views in appropriate narrower
domains. In the present instance, stronger relations may have
emerged had we narrowed assessments to the peer context, and it
may also have been productive to evaluate more specifically
whether some domains are more predictive of jealousy than others.
For example, young adolescents’ views of their physical appear-
ance have proven especially potent in other contexts (see Harter,
1999) and could be equally important to jealousy as well.
Relatedly, a potentially important final issue is whether, along
with low self-esteem, some forms of high self-esteem may also
leave one vulnerable to jealousy. Baumeister (1998), in particular,
suggested that individuals with inflated self-esteem may be espe-
cially vulnerable to social threats. According to Baumeister, in-
flated self-esteem associated with narcissism and self-serving at-
tributions is especially fragile, unstable, and readily threatened.
Unlike individuals with more moderate or realistically anchored
high self-views, individuals with high but fragile self-esteem are
prone to perceive others’ ambiguous behavior in ego-threatening
ways and to respond to perceived personal slights aggressively
(e.g., Heatherton & Vols, 2000). Because in our study, the group
of young adolescents with high self-esteem is likely to have
included both individuals with unrealistic and defensive appraisals
of self-worth as well as individuals with more secure and stable
forms, it may not be surprising that a modest overall relation
emerged between jealousy and self-worth. Developing better ways
to distinguish these distinct forms of high self-esteem in assess-
ments and creating a better understanding of their differential
implications for jealousy seems a potentially productive direction
for future research.
Study 2
Friendship jealousy stems from interpersonal threat, creates
uncertainty, and involves a blended array of strong emotions.
Often, but not invariably, the experience of jealousy is also ac-
companied by behavioral expressions. Jealous behavior involves
goal-directed attempts to influence the self, the partner, or the
situation in order to preserve the relationship, reduce uncertainty,
or restore self-esteem (Buunk & Bringle, 1987; Guerrero & Afifi,
1999; Guerrero et al., 1995). Depending on their nature and the
skill with which they are executed, these efforts may or may not
contribute to relationship satisfaction and children’s broader social
success and adjustment. On the one hand, research with adults
indicates that many individuals respond positively to experiences
of jealousy with enhanced communication, compensatory interest
and outreach to others, and efforts at self-improvement or rela-
tionship enhancement (Guerrero et al., 1995). Positive responses to
jealousy may demonstrate to partners their value to the individual
or lead to an adaptive renegotiation of relational rules (Rusbult &
Buunk, 1993). Indeed, it is likely that skillfully executed positive
responses to jealousy do not strike partners or others as evidence
of jealousy at all; instead, they may appear as evidence of inter-
personal interest or as an expression of caring, closeness, and
commitment (see Guerrero et al., 1995).
However, jealousy is not always or even usually expressed
positively and, as noted, has been identified as a major source of
relationship conflict, aggression, and violence among adults in
romantic contexts. Negative behavioral responses to jealousy nor-
mally vary widely and may include simply abandoning the rela-
tionship entirely (e.g., Buunk, 1982). Equally often, however,
behavioral expressions of jealousy include subtle forms of aggres-
sion, such as passive (e.g., sarcasm, sulking, threats to end the
relationship, guilt induction, giving the “silent treatment”) or so-
cial (e.g., derogating interlopers through gossip, manipulating so-
cial circumstances to exclude others) aggression as well as at-
tempts at outright intimidation (e.g., verbal or physical assault,
humiliation) (see Guerrero et al., 1995). Negative behavioral re-
sponses to jealousy are likely to be recognized by partners and
others, and, when habitual, may earn individuals reputations for
jealousy with partners and others.
The emphasis placed on less obvious forms of aggression as
behavioral expressions of jealousy may in part reflect the commu-
nicative dilemmas faced by jealous individuals. Individuals who
feel jealous may avoid unbridled, obvious aggression against a
partner because it is normally incompatible with relationship ideals
and can endanger their maintenance. Moreover, as noted, jealousy
normally carries some degree of attached negative social stigma.
Thus, jealous individuals may avoid obvious forms of aggression
and retaliation to avoid appearing even less desirable to the part-
ner. Likewise, patent aggression against a rival that is regarded as
undeserved can engender sympathy for the victim in the partner or
among others in the social network. By relying more on subtle
aggression, jealous individuals may hope to escape some of the
social accountability of obvious aggression while achieving the
same retaliatory or coercive ends (Bjo¨rkqvist, 1994). Women and
girls, especially, may be inclined to use subtle forms of aggression
because social disapproval for obvious aggression may be stronger
for females than for males (Brown et al., 1999).
240
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
On the basis of these considerations, our initial goal in Study 2
was to expand the assessment of friendship jealousy beyond self-
reports to include assessments based on the reports of peers. Peer
behavioral assessments, particularly those based on sociometric
nominations, have a long tradition within social developmental
research and have contributed importantly to the understanding
and identification of aggressive children and children with diffi-
culties such as social withdrawal, depression, and deficit social
skills (see Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1997). In the present
instance, we hypothesized that young adolescents would also be
sensitive to signs of jealous behavior in others and therefore that
some consensus would exist among the members of a grade level
at school about which young adolescents are and are not prone to
habitual jealousy and possessiveness over friends. Hence socio-
metric polling of peers should produce a useful hierarchy among
members in terms of their peer-perceived susceptibility to friend-
ship jealousy. However, because not all individuals who report
feeling jealous may display jealous behaviors, we expected only a
low to moderate correlation between individuals identified as
jealous by their peers and those who self-reported being prone to
jealousy. Further, consistent with theoretical and empirical argu-
ments as well as with the findings in Study 1, we anticipated that,
compared with boys, girls would have higher reputations for
jealousy among their peers.
In addition, we distinguished the reports of jealousy stemming
from an individual’s mutual friends from those stemming from
peers who were not friends with the individual. Several contem-
porary approaches to relationships stress that parties to relation-
ships view one another in particularized ways. Idiosyncratic per-
ceptions can be perceptual biases stemming from individuals’
awareness of their relationship (e.g., Hymel, Wagner, & Butler,
1990; Sumrall, Ray, & Tidwell, 2000) or grounded in the unique
relationship history of the perceiver and the perceived (e.g., Cil-
lessen & Ferguson, 1988; Parker & Gamm, 2003). In the present
instance, we reasoned that, compared with nonfriends, friends
presumably have a deeper understanding of their partners and a
wider context for judging their behavior. On the other hand, as the
likely targets of their consternation, nonfriends may see the pos-
sessiveness of jealous individuals in clearer relief and may be less
charitable when interpreting it. Thus, we anticipated that the re-
ports of friends and nonfriends would produce overlapping but not
redundant data on others’ jealousy, and it was of interest whether
and how the utility of these reports would vary with vantage point.
A second aim in Study 2 was to examine the link between self-
and peer-perceived friendship jealousy and young adolescents’
aggressive behavior. Although peers may perceive jealous tenden-
cies in others directly by discerning that these individuals voice
upset in specific circumstances surrounding friends, another ave-
nue by which young adolescents may recognize jealous peers is
through their tendency to engage in retaliatory or preemptive
aggression. As noted, research with adults suggests that jealous
individuals may favor subtle forms of aggression over obvious
intimidation in order to avoid social disapproval and accountability
with partners and others. On the assumption that jealous young
adolescents, like adults, prefer aggressive strategies that balance
their desire for maximal effects on targets with the risks of social
censure (see Bjo¨rkqvist, 1994), the link between jealousy and
subtle social and passive aggression was of particular interest.
After lagging for several decades behind research on direct, phys-
ical forms of aggression, research on social and passive forms of
aggression has grown rapidly in recent years, and important strides
have been made in understanding the assessment, functions, and
impact of such behavior (see Underwood, 2003). This work dem-
onstrates that acts of social exclusion, gossiping, and other forms
of nonphysical aggression intended to harm others are relatively
common in boys’ and girls’ groups from the early elementary
school years on, more common typically than acts of physical
assault (e.g., Prinstein, Boergers, & Vernberg, 2001), and that
children victimized in this manner are at risk for subsequent
maladjustment (see Crick, Casas, & Ku, 1999). Moreover, al-
though notable exceptions exist (e.g., Henington, Hughes, Cavell,
& Thompson, 1998; Paquette & Underwood, 1999; Prinstein et al.,
2001), sex differences in social aggression have also been noted,
prompting speculation that females, especially, may rely on subtle
over obvious forms (see Crick, Werner, et al., 1999; Rys & Bear,
1997; Underwood, Galen, & Paquette, 2001). Accordingly, we
hypothesized that young adolescents with reputations for jealousy
over friends would behave more aggressively with peers and, in
particular, would be more likely to engage in social or passive
aggression. Self-reported jealousy was anticipated to be less
strongly related to aggressive behavior because, as noted previ-
ously, the experience of jealousy need not necessarily translate into
problematic expressions of jealousy.
Although negative jealous behavior is likely to have its strongest
impact on relationship partners, it may also influence social ad-
justment beyond the context of the immediate relationship. Al-
though an individual’s jealous behavior may perhaps be flattering
to a partner at first, the partner may grow weary of it and leave the
relationship when it proves demanding or exceeds the boundaries
of cultural expectations for autonomy in friendship relationships
(Rawlins, 1992). Over time, habitually jealous individuals may
acquire a retinue of disgruntled past friends within the group,
lowering their overall social standing and acceptance. Likewise,
even if their friends remain patient with them, individuals who
habitually behave in overprotective ways around friends, particu-
larly if they direct aggression toward outsiders, may exhaust the
goodwill of the peer group. Habitually negative jealous behavior
may also be linked to compromised social adjustment more di-
rectly, however. Specifically, studies with adults suggest that oth-
ers perceive unwarranted jealousy as a sign of insecurity, imma-
turity, and weakness. If this occurs in young adolescent peer
groups, jealous young adolescents may also be at risk for being
victimized by more powerful and successful peers.
Accordingly, a third goal in Study 2 was to examine whether the
tendency to act jealous over friends is associated with broader
indices of problematic social adjustment, including peer rejection,
peer victimization, and resultant feelings of loneliness. Because
the experience of jealousy need not translate into expressions of
problematic jealous behavior, we did not anticipate strong links
among self-reported jealousy and peer difficulties, with the excep-
tion of loneliness. We anticipated that jealous young adolescents’
chronic concerns surrounding friends might contribute directly to
feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction regardless of
whether those concerns translated into behavioral expressions of
jealousy.
In sum, Study 2 was primarily designed to extend the assess-
ment of friendship jealousy to include identification of young
adolescents with reputations for jealousy among peers and to
241
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
examine how peer reputations for jealousy relate to specific forms
of aggression and multiple indexes of broader social adjustment. In
particular, Figure 1 summarizes in the form of a path model the
hypotheses that serve as the foci for Study 2. As shown, the
subjective experience of jealousy is anticipated to have modest
direct influences on aggression and on young adolescents’ repu-
tations for jealousy within and outside their circle of friends,
consistent with arguments that feelings of jealousy frequently, but
not invariably, translate into aggressive and other forms of jealous
behavior. On the other hand, young adolescents’ reputations for
jealousy among peers, especially among nonfriends, are antici-
pated to be strongly and directly linked to aggression. Aggression
in turn is expected to diminish broader social acceptance among
peers. However, perceptions of jealousy are also expected to
contribute directly to problems in social acceptance, reflecting in
part the potential negative stigma attached to such behavior in
young adolescents of this age. In a similar vein, perceptions of
jealousy in the peer group are also expected to contribute directly
to victimization by peers. Consistent with past research, both peer
victimization and problematic social acceptance are anticipated to
increase young adolescents’ reports of social dissatisfaction and
loneliness. However, young adolescents’ reports of social dissat-
isfaction and loneliness are also anticipated to be directly influ-
enced by their feelings of jealousy and its attendant frustration.
Unlike Study 1, Study 2 included a sample with a broad age range,
from approximately 10 years to approximately 15 years. Thus, an
additional feature of Study 2 is that it provides a beginning
opportunity to explore age differences in the expression and ex-
perience of friendship jealousy. On the basis of Selman’s (1980;
Selman & Schultz, 1990) formulation, we anticipated lower ex-
pression and experience of jealousy for older adolescents, com-
mensurate with putative improvement in the maturity of individ-
uals’ interpersonal reasoning over this span.
Method
Participants
Participants were young adolescents living in the rural northeast United
States and enrolled in the fifth through ninth grades. Fifth- and sixth-grade
participants were members of the 10 self-contained classrooms of a single
elementary school. Seventh- through ninth-grade participants attended
middle school in the same school district as the elementary-school-age
participants. Although drawn from different communities, the demographic
makeup of the region in Study 2 was similar to that in Study 1.
Parents of the 485 young adolescents in the targeted grades were mailed
letters requesting permission for their child to participate. Of these 485
children, 422 received permission. However, 21 children with permission
did not complete any assessments because of persistent scheduling diffi-
culties, and 2 further children had extensive missing data and were also
dropped. As a result, the final sample of 399 participating children con-
sisted of 79 (33 girls) fifth graders, 99 (45 girls) sixth graders, 89 (38 girls)
seventh graders, 73 (36 girls) eighth graders, and 59 (36 girls) ninth
graders.
Measures
Peer-perceived friendship jealousy. Peer-perceived jealousy was as-
sessed with four sociometric behavioral nomination items embedded in
arbitrary order in a larger battery of items. Jealousy items included the
following: “students who are possessive of their friends,” “students who try
to keep their friends to themselves,” “students who get really jealous if you
Figure 1. Conceptual model.
242
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
do something cool or fun with their friend,” and “students who get really
jealous if you try to be friends with their friend.” In addition to jealousy,
the larger battery also assessed participants’ reputations for various forms
of aggression (seven items, see below) and for peer victimization (four
items, see below). Remaining items included positive, filler items (e.g.,
“students who care about others”) that were included to avoid giving the
battery a uniformly negative tone.
For each item, participants were presented with a roster consisting of a
random sample of 25 same-sex and same-age peers and were asked to
identify any individuals who fit the indicated description. An unlimited
number of choices of peers was permitted for each item, and participants
were permitted to cross out the names of individuals for whom they were
too unfamiliar to make a confident judgment. Rosters were constructed
using custom computer software that ensured that the lists of agemates that
appeared were random over items in the battery and across individual
participants with the constraint that for every item in the battery, every
participant had to appear in the roster of potential choices of 25 of their
peers.
Finally, along with their choices of others for the various behaviors,
participants were also asked to list their closest friends in order to facilitate
the differentiation of nominations received from friends from those re-
ceived from nonfriend classmates. Friendship nominations were solicited
without providing the participants with rosters, before soliciting their
nominations for various behaviors, and an unlimited number of friendship
designations was permitted. Classmates were considered friends if they
mutually nominated one another.
Young adolescents’ reputations for friendship jealousy among friends
and nonfriends were calculated by summing for each jealousy item the
number of nominations received from friends or nonfriends as appropriate
and dividing by the corresponding number of potential nominators (minus
the number of peers who felt too unfamiliar to judge). The resulting
percentage scores were then standardized across the sample and averaged
across items. In the calculation of friend-reported jealousy, it was deter-
mined that 37 participants (8%) did not have a reciprocal friend. Friend-
reported jealousy could not be computed for these individuals. In addition,
because peers were allocated to rosters at random, 46 further individuals
(11%) were excluded because by chance none of their existing friends were
included in the pool of peers assigned to provide nominations of their
jealousy. The internal consistency of the four jealousy items, pooled over
source, was excellent (
␣
⫽ .93).
Self-reported friendship jealousy. Young adolescents’ self-reports of
their disposition for jealousy were again assessed using the FJQ. As in
Study 1, the 15 primary items of the FJQ demonstrated high internal
consistency (
␣
⫽ .94).
Aggression. Participants’ reputations among peers for specific forms
of aggression were assessed as part of the peer nomination battery and
following the procedures outlined above. Aggression items in the battery
were culled from several existing batteries, particularly those provided by
Crick & Grotpeter (1995) and Perry, Kussel, and Perry (1988). Social
aggression consisted of three items focusing on attacking others by hurting
their social standing or inclusion status without involving physical assault,
including “students who try to keep certain people from being in their
group,” “students who, when they are mad at a person, get even by keeping
that person out of their group of friends,” and “students who try to make
other students not like a person by spreading rumors about them or talking
behind their backs” (
␣
⫽ .92). Passive aggression consisted of two items
(“students who, when mad at a person, ignore the person or stop talking to
them” and “students who tell their friends they will stop liking them unless
the friends do what they say”) that, while confrontational, took the form of
guilt induction or threatened withdrawal of affection (
␣
⫽ .79). Finally,
verbal/physical harassment consisted of two items (“students who hit and
push others around” and “students who make fun of people”) indexing
obvious use of verbal intimidation or physical force (
␣
⫽ .89). Partici-
pants’ reputations for the various forms of aggression were determined by
calculating and standardizing the percentage of nominations for each
relevant item, standardizing, and then averaging over items.
Social acceptance. Participants were presented with a roster consisting
of a random sample of 25 same-sex and same-age peers and were asked to
indicate ona0(not at all)to4(really a lot) rating scale how much they
liked each individual. Participants were permitted to cross out the names of
unfamiliar individuals, and rosters were constructed such that every par-
ticipant’s name appeared on the roster of a random sample of 25 of their
peers. A participant’s level of acceptance among peers was determined
from the average ratings received from his or her peers.
Loneliness and social dissatisfaction. Individual differences in social
dissatisfaction and feelings of loneliness were assessed with a 16-item
scale developed and validated by Asher and Wheeler (1985). This measure
includes 16 target items (e.g., “It is hard for me to make friends at school”;
“I have nobody to talk to in class”) and 8 distractor items (e.g., “I like to
watch TV a lot”). Respondents rate on a 5-point scale ranging from not at
all true (0) to really true (4), how strongly each item applies to themselves.
A higher total score indicates greater loneliness and social dissatisfaction.
Internal consistency for this scale was excellent (
␣
⫽ .91).
Victimization by peers. Participants’ victimization by peers was
gauged as part of the peer nomination battery outlined above. The four
victimization items included in the battery of nominations were “students
who get their feelings hurt by other students,” “students who get hit and
pushed by other students,” “students who get made fun of by other
students,” and “students who get picked on all the time by other students.”
Internal consistency (alpha) was .95.
Procedure
Primary assessment took place in two group-administered sessions of
approximately 40 min each. The sessions were conducted by graduate
students and trained undergraduate research assistants and were separated
by approximately 1 week. Elementary school students were tested during
school hours in their primary classroom. Middle school students were
tested during mandatory English classes. Students who missed group
testing participated individually or in small groups at variously scheduled
makeup sessions held within a few days of group testing.
In the first session, students completed the self-report measure of jeal-
ousy as well as the measure of loneliness. During the second group testing,
participants completed the assessments of acceptance, friendship, jealousy,
aggression, and victimization. Instructions for all measures were read to the
participants, but they silently read and answered items individually. Indi-
viduals who were identified by teachers as requiring support with reading
were tested individually or in small groups by trained undergraduate
research assistants who read all items aloud and gave individualized
instruction. At the completion of testing, questionnaires were spot-checked
for errors, and participants were thanked and given token gifts of
appreciation.
Results
Sex and Grade Differences in Jealousy
Potential grade and sex differences in jealousy were explored in
three parallel multiple regressions. Self-, friend- and nonfriend-
reported jealousy served as the dependent measures in these anal-
yses. In each, sex (dummy coded; female ⫽ 0, male ⫽ 1) and
grade were entered on the first step, followed on the next step by
the Sex ⫻ Grade interaction term.
Results were highly consistent across regressions, and all three
regressions resulted in significant overall models: self-reports, R(3,
382) ⫽ 20.60, p ⬍ .01, R
2
⫽ .14; friend reports, R(3, 348) ⫽ 4.39,
p ⬍ .01, R
2
⫽ .04; nonfriend reports, R(3, 395) ⫽ 26.78, p ⬍ .01,
R
2
⫽ .17. With respect to grade, all three models produced
243
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
associated betas that were negative and significant:

s ⫽⫺.35,
⫺.16, and ⫺.24, for self-, friend-, and nonfriend-reported jealousy,
respectively, all ps ⬍ .01. Thus, as grade increased, in general
children’s jealousy surrounding friends subsided, regardless of the
index. Likewise, the betas associated with sex were also significant
in every regression:

s ⫽⫺.14, ⫺.11, and ⫺.36, for self-, friend-,
and nonfriend-reported jealousy, respectively, all ps ⬍ .05. The
negative direction of these relations indicates that boys were less
jealous than girls. No significant Grade ⫻ Sex interactions were
present.
Jealousy, Aggression, and Adjustment
Structural equation modeling (SEM) utilizing the AMOS 4.0
program (Arbuckle, 1999) was used to model the expected asso-
ciations among the measures of jealousy as well as hypothesized
direct and indirect links between these measures and measures of
aggression, social acceptance, victimization, and loneliness (see
Figure 1). Modeling was based on the maximum-likelihood esti-
mation algorithm and conducted once based on only the subset of
292 of 321 participants with complete data and once using impu-
tation for cases with missing variables. However, models using
listwise deletion and those correcting for missing data were nearly
identical. Thus, all results presented below are based on cases with
complete data to provide the optimal unbiased estimates of param-
eters. Prior to modeling, data were scrutinized for outliers, skewed
distributions, or other nonstandard conditions that would cloud
interpretation of the path model. No substantial difficulties were
noted apart from the distribution of loneliness, which was skewed.
Accordingly, loneliness was log transformed to achieve a more
normal distribution.
Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and results of
t tests comparing boys and girls on each variable intended for SEM
analysis. Consistent with the analysis from the full sample, boys
and girls in the SEM sample differed in self- and nonfriend-
reported jealousy (see Table 1). Sex differences in friend-reported
jealousy were in the same direction but not as strong in the SEM
sample as in the full sample. Compared with boys, girls also had
reputations for greater passive and social aggression, consistent
with the literature (see Table 1). Table 1 also presents the corre-
lations among these variables. Coefficients appearing above the
diagonal apply to girls (N ⫽ 151), whereas those appearing below
the diagonal apply to boys (N ⫽ 141). Of special interest is that
strong positive associations existed among social aggression, pas-
sive aggression, and verbal/physical harassment for both sexes.
Substantial correlations among these forms of aggression have also
been noted in past research (e.g., Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Hen-
ington et al., 1998; Prinstein et al., 2001), but their presence caused
multicollinearity-related fit problems in the model and precluded
using these variables as indicator variables of a latent variable. In
view of this difficulty, the model in Figure 1 was fit by averaging
participants’ reputation for all three forms of aggression and using
this composite as an observed variable. The reliability of this
composite was excellent (
␣
⫽ .90).
Following Loehlin (1992) and Byrne (2001), we proceeded with
model fitting by estimating a series of nested models to determine
the invariance of estimates across sex. Specifically, a baseline
model and associated goodness of fit were initially established by
constraining all parameters to be equal across sexes. Results indi-
cated that this fully constrained model did not provide an adequate
fit to the data:
2
(33) ⫽ 145.64, p ⬍ .01; normed fit index (NFI) ⫽
.81; conditional fit index (CFI) ⫽ .84; root-mean-square error of
approximation (RMSEA) ⫽ .11. Accordingly, the model was
respecified to permit measurement error to vary between the sexes
but holding invariant the path coefficients and covariances among
variables (i.e., the parameters of principal interest). Compared with
the fit of the fully constrained baseline model, this less-restricted
model was a significant improvement, ⌬
2
(6) ⫽ 100.75, p ⬍ .01.
The fit statistics for this revised model were as follows:
2
(27) ⫽
44.89, p ⬍ .01; NFI ⫽ .94; CFI ⫽ .97; RMSEA ⫽ .06. However,
further analyses indicated that allowing path coefficients and co-
variances among variables to be freely estimated for each sex
yielded even further improvement in fit, ⌬
2
(8) ⫽ 24.89, p ⬍ .01,
and also provided a good fit to the data:
2
(19) ⫽ 20.14, p ⬍ .38;
NFI ⫽ .97; CFI ⫽ .99; RMSEA ⫽ .01. Thus, this fully uncon-
strained model was the model adopted as the final model. Figures
2 and 3 present the standardized path coefficients and covariances
Table 1
Sex Differences and Intercorrelations Among Primary Variables in Structural Model Sample
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Jealousy—Self-reported .18 .06 ⫺.02 .01 .03 .10 .03 .19
2. Jealousy—Friend-reported .06 .45 .41 .42 .44 .22 ⴚ.31 .11
3. Jealousy—Non-friend-reported .18 .34 .77 .87 .91 .11 ⴚ.36 .02
4. Verbal/physical harassment ⫺.08 .09 .49 .82 .80 .13 ⴚ.32 .04
5. Passive aggression .14 .38 .71 .55 .88 .12 ⴚ.36 .03
6. Social aggression .15 .29 .70 .74 .64 .05 ⴚ.28 ⫺.07
7. Victimization by peers ⫺.10 .19 .09 ⫺.09 .13 ⫺.11 ⴚ.78 .47
8. Social acceptance .02 ⴚ.16 ⴚ.22 ⫺.09 ⴚ.25 ⫺.06 ⴚ.62 ⴚ.39
9. Loneliness .13 ⫺.09 .05 ⫺.03 .08 ⫺.05 .26 ⴚ.37
Girls 1.53 .01 .36 .00 .33 .25 ⫺.11 3.05 1.39
Boys 1.30 ⫺.07 ⫺.38 ⫺.09 ⫺.38 ⫺.27 ⫺.21 3.16 1.41
t(290) 2.15 1.05 7.17 .87 6.96 4.84 1.01 ⫺1.46 ⫺1.57
p .05 ns .00 ns .00 .00 ns ns ns
Note. Correlations for girls appear above the diagonal, and those for boys appear below the diagonal. Correlations that appear in bold are significant at
p ⬍ .05 or greater.
244
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
from the final model for female and male participants, respec-
tively. Hypothesized pathways that did not produce statistically
significant coefficients are displayed only as dashed lines to aid
interpretation. In addition, for the sake of clarity of presentation,
these figures do not include the error variances for the indicator
variables.
Inspection of Figure 2 reveals that the primary hypotheses
were supported to a large degree among girls. Thus, as shown,
girls’ self-reports of their vulnerability to jealousy predicted a
reputation for jealousy among their friends and, via this indirect
route, a reputation for jealousy among nonfriends. In turn, a
reputation for jealousy among nonfriends was strongly associ-
ated with being known for engaging in aggression. However,
unless girls had a reputation for jealousy among nonfriends,
their self-reported vulnerability to jealousy was not directly
related to aggression. Further, girls’ reputations for jealousy
with friends and nonfriends independently and negatively in-
fluenced their social acceptance with peers, as anticipated.
Significantly, girls’ reputation for aggression no longer influ-
enced their social standing among peers after the joint influence
of friends’ and nonfriends’ perceptions of jealousy was consid-
ered (cf. Figure 2 and Table 1). Low social acceptance, in turn,
was strongly related to victimization among girls and, via this
route, to feelings of loneliness. However, girls’ reputation for
jealousy among friends (but not nonfriends) also had a more
direct route to victimization and, hence, subsequent loneliness
(see Figure 2). Finally, as anticipated, self-reported jealousy
contributed directly to loneliness, over and above the overlap-
ping and substantial contributions of social acceptance and
victimization.
As shown in Figure 3, the conclusions for boys are similar to
those for girls, although a few differences are also of note. As
with girls, boys’ self-reports of friendship jealousy did not
directly predict aggression but did directly predict loneliness.
Likewise, self-reported jealousy in boys was related to the
reports of friends and nonfriends, as in girls. Unlike self-reports
of jealousy in girls, boys’ self-reports of jealousy were directly
related to their reputation for jealousy outside their friendship
network rather than linked indirectly via the reports of members
of the friendship network. Nonetheless, the directions of the
coefficients for both pathways were similar across boys and
girls and not significantly different from one another (critical
ratios ⫽ .27 and 1.16, respectively). Further, unlike friends’
reports of jealousy for girls, friends’ reports of jealousy for
boys were not significantly related to lower acceptance (see
Figure 3). Again, however, the directions of the coefficients for
this pathway were similar across boys and girls and not signif-
icantly different from one another (critical ratio ⫽ .67). As with
girls, friend reports of jealousy did contribute to victimization,
and a reputation among nonfriends for jealousy was strongly
associated with aggression and also contributed to lower accep-
tance with peers. Acceptance and victimization were strongly
inversely related, in turn, and jointly contributed to loneliness.
In contrast to the situation with girls, however, social accep-
tance, rather than victimization per se, uniquely contributed to
loneliness in boys. Moreover, the differences between boys and
girls in the magnitudes of these pathways were statistically
significant (critical ratio of differences ⫽ 1.97 and 2.30,
respectively).
Figure 2. Structural equation model for girls.
245
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
Discussion
As in Study 1, young adolescents’ self-reports of their vulner-
ability to jealousy surrounding friends were internally consistent
and produced robust individual differences. In Study 1, these
differences were linked to self-worth; in Study 2, they were related
to, among other things, individuals’ reports of their loneliness and
dissatisfaction with their peers and friends. It is important to note
that this connection existed (a) even within a pool of subjects that
excluded individuals who had only one friend or no friends at all
and (b) even after we controlled for young adolescents’ broader
social acceptance and experiences of active victimization by peers.
Lacking friends, being poorly liked, and being the target of vic-
timization are all strongly associated, albeit in overlapping ways,
with feelings of loneliness (Parker, Saxon, Asher, & Kovacs,
1999). Therefore it is particularly impressive that feelings of
jealousy should further contribute to the experiencing of loneli-
ness. After reviewing the literature in children’s loneliness re-
cently, Parker et al. (1999) called for further insight into why many
children who are well adjusted by traditional markers (e.g., many
high-quality friendships, being well liked) nonetheless continue to
express loneliness. The present findings may provide a partial
answer: For at least a subset of highly vulnerable individuals,
having friends and being well accepted may well be the begin-
ning—not the end— of their social difficulties. For these vulnera-
ble individuals, the social context of their friendships is an impor-
tant, and presumably chronic, source of subjective distress and
disillusionment.
The findings also extend Study 1 by documenting that peers
inside and outside of an individual’s friendship network can pro-
vide an important additional source of information on young
adolescents’ jealousy. In particular, sociometric polling in both
contexts produced hierarchies of jealousy that were linked to other
important variables. The question of how peers come by these
impressions is an interesting one that warrants further study. Pre-
sumably, the task of judging others’ jealousy depends less on
gauging the frequency of specialized behavior than on making
inferences about others’ motivations (i.e., their disposition to be
insecure about their friend’s other friends and social activities) on
the basis of a broad swath of behavior with full consideration of its
contextual meaning. For example, bragging and boasting may
represent just an irksome personality trait when they occur fre-
quently, indiscriminately, and unpredictably; but they could be
signs of jealousy when they occur selectively following a close
friend’s choice of another, high-status peer as an activity partner.
Our findings do not provide much insight into precisely how peers
infer such motivations, but the apparent sophistication of these
judgments suggests that there may be limits on how early one may
use sociometric assessments of jealousy. With very young chil-
dren, difficulties in inferring others’ motives and emotional states
may limit the usefulness of this assessment (Zelazo, Astington, &
Olson, 1999).
Relatedly, although the assessments of jealousy provided by
friends and nonfriends were each related to other variables, they
were not redundant. This highlights the importance of considering
the source’s vantage point in the use of peer assessments of
behavior, especially behaviors as complex as jealousy. Compared
with those of nonfriends, friends’ judgments of jealousy offer the
advantage of being based on a longer history of contact with the
Figure 3. Structural equation model for boys.
246
PARKER, LOW, WALKER, AND GAMM
target and a deeper understanding of the target’s interests and
insecurities (Furman, 1996). On the other hand, a good deal of
research supports the conclusion that relational schemas and other
cognitive processing variables can lead individuals to dismiss or
minimize unflattering or aggressive behavior when it is perpetrated
by friends or liked peers as opposed to others (e.g., Parker &
Gamm, 2003; Sumrall et al., 2000). Outsiders may not be as
charitable. Each perspective may have merit, and unless and until
it is clear from subsequent research that one source is superior to
another, future studies of jealousy should continue to distinguish
these sources to obtain the most comprehensive portrait of indi-
viduals’ jealousy.
Although friends and nonfriends did not wholly agree on which
individuals were the most jealous and possessive of their friends,
they agreed that the individuals they knew to be the most jealous
were also the most aggressive individuals they knew. This link
between jealousy over friends and aggression is consistent with
considerable research on adults that links the expression of jeal-
ousy in romantic contexts to negative behavior, including inter-
personal violence (Hansen, 1991; Stets & Pirog-Good, 1987; Sug-
arman & Hotaling, 1989). It is noteworthy that nonfriends’ reports
of jealousy, especially, were strongly related to aggression. As
noted earlier, because they are embedded in larger group contexts,
young adolescents’ relationships cannot be shielded from outside
events. The present findings are provocative insofar as they sug-
gest that the reverse is also true—issues between friends can make
life difficult for outsiders as well.
Strong associations among our measures of aggression pre-
vented us from directly testing our hypothesis that jealous indi-
viduals may favor subtle forms of aggression over obvious efforts
at intimidation. Indeed, the consistency of the correlation between
jealousy and aggression regardless of form suggests that this
hypothesis must be somehow incomplete. Nonetheless, that jeal-
ousy was tied at all to social and passive forms of aggression is
noteworthy, as considerable controversy exists concerning the
motivational basis for these types of behavior (see Simmons, 2002;
Underwood, 2003). Our findings point to the possibility that per-
ceived interference in friendships may provide a previously un-
derappreciated motivational basis for these forms of aggressive
behavior.
It is also interesting to note that structural modeling revealed
that it was peers’ perception that individuals were jealous, and not
their reputation for aggression, that contributed to their victimiza-
tion by peers and undermined their broader acceptance. These
findings serve to highlight the potential social stigma attached to
jealousy in the peer group and the potential role that perceptions of
jealousy may play as a stimulus to peer victimization. Several
years ago, Argyle and Henderson (1985) noted that adults and
adolescents understand the “rules” of friendships to include pro-
hibitions against being jealous or critical of a partner’s other
relationships. If jealousy violates cultural conceptions of friend-
ship, it would not be surprising if peers disliked jealous individu-
als, who may strike them as immature or out of touch. However,
broader group processes may also be at work. For example,
Bukowski and Sippola (2001) recently proposed that individuals
invite peer victimization when they interfere with collective group
needs for homogeneity, cohesion, and evolution. To the extent that
chronic jealousy is not a widely shared disposition, disrupts group
functioning by creating tension among members, and discourages
exploration of new social ties among the members, Bukowski and
Sippola’s formulation appears to be a good candidate explanation
for the link we observed between jealousy and peer rejection and
victimization.
Whereas peer reports of jealousy were linked to aggression,
young adolescents’ self-reports were not. Because our assessments
of aggression and peer reputations for jealousy were both based on
peer reports, common method variance may play some role in this
differential association. Nonetheless, we anticipated a modest or
low association between self-reported jealousy and measures of
aggressive behavior on the basis of conceptual arguments found in
the literature about the experience of jealousy and its expression
(e.g., Afifi & Reichert, 1996; Andersen et al., 1995; Guerrero et
al., 1995). A wide number of factors no doubt govern whether
feelings of jealousy are expressed and what shape those expres-
sions take. For example, research with adults suggests that indi-
viduals’ responses are shaped by their attributions for their part-
ner’s interest in others (Buunk, 1984). Jealous individuals also
sometimes dismiss their feelings, feign indifference, or display
exaggerated self-reliance in the form of steadfastly refraining from
feeling sad or angry and refusing to ask others for support in an
effort to preserve or restore self-esteem (Salovey & Rodin, 1985,
1988, 1989). Presumably, the broader emotional understanding
and regulation skills of jealous individuals also play a role in
whether their feelings are apparent to their partners and others
(Saarni, 1999).
At present, only limited empirical data exist on these coping
processes in jealous adults, and virtually none exists on jealousy in
young adolescents. An important goal for future research should be
to broaden our understanding of the range of behaviors young
adolescents engage in when they feel jealous and to better delin-
eate when they use various coping strategies and how effective
these are in managing the perceived threat. White and Mullen
(1989), for example, argued that externally directed, problem-
focused jealous responses are likely used when individuals believe
they can affect the situation, whereas internally directed, emotion-
focused strategies are used when individuals believe they cannot
affect the situation or engage in self-blame (see also Lazarus,
1991). White and Mullen’s (1989) formulation, as well as several
other related conceptualizations (e.g., Afifi & Reichert, 1996;
Guerrero et al., 1995; Radecki-Bush, Farrell, & Bush, 1993;
Salovey & Rodin, 1988; White, 1999) might serve as a starting
point for further investigation into this issue.
Finally, our analysis of sex and grade influences on jealousy in
Study 2 produced results that were not only consistent with ex-
pectations and past research but also robust to differences in
measurement perspective. To begin with, girls reported greater
jealousy over friends than did boys, which replicated the findings
of Study 1. Indeed, the present findings extend those of Study 1 by
demonstrating that sex differences in jealousy are apparent not
only in ninth grade but also several years earlier. Moreover, Study
2 shows that the salience of friendship jealousy among girls
extends beyond their subjective experience. As a group, girls also
had greater reputations for jealousy among their peer friends and
nonfriends relative to boys. As noted earlier, girls’ greater jealousy
may reflect both cultural norms and their greater dependence on
their friends for emotional support. However, Study 2 also pro-
vides an important counterweight to the emphasis on sex differ-
ences that might otherwise be present. Notwithstanding the mean
247
CHILDREN’S FRIENDSHIP JEALOUSY
differences between the sexes, for the most part, jealousy func-
tioned similarly for boys and for girls in contributing to problems
of peer victimization, social rejection, and loneliness. Nonfriend-
reported jealousy was strongly linked to engaging in aggression in
both groups, for example. Moreover, although some pathways
were significant for one sex or the other, for the most part the
coefficients connected to these pathways for boys and girls were
similar in direction and not statistically different when compared
directly.
Finally, older adolescents reported they were less likely to
experience jealousy over friends. This lowered vulnerability was
echoed in the reports of peers, who reported fewer friends and
nonfriends as chronically jealous with age. As noted, age differ-
ences in friendship jealousy were first posited by Selman (1980).
In particular, Selman earmarked the beginning of the fourth stage
of his developmental framework (Stage III) as the period of
heightened friendship jealousy, anticipating a decline over this
period such that, by the next stage (Stage IV), jealousy should no
longer present difficulties for most individuals. Although Selman
provided only rough guidelines as to the specific ages of his stages,
it appears that Stage III in Selman’s framework corresponds
roughly to ages 9 –10 years to 14 –15 years, tightly encompassing
the age span sampled in the present study. Our findings, then, fit
very neatly into Selman’s developmental description, although in
the absence of data on both younger and older participants, they
are far from conclusive. As noted, Selman surmised that older
children’s better perspective-taking skills permitted them to step
outside the relationship, viewing it with greater objectivity and
realism, and to recognize some limits on their ability to meet all of
the needs of their friend. However Selman’s is only one possible
interpretation of why the older adolescents in our study expressed
less jealousy than did the younger ones. For example, after about
age 12, a general decline can be observed in individuals’ vulner-
ability to making unwarranted hostile interpretations of others’
intent in ambiguous circumstances (Orobio de Castro, Veerman,
Koops, Bosch, & Monshouwer, 2002). It is reasonable to expect
that the disposition to jealousy is driven in part by a readiness to
infer malevolent intent toward the self in an outsider’s overtures
toward one’s friend. If this is so, a decline in this disposition could
drive a decline in vulnerability to jealousy.
Conclusions
Researchers have been slow to acknowledge that friendships are
embedded in larger networks of relationships, and little is confi-
dently known of the quandaries young adolescents face as a result.
The present research helps close this gap by addressing the issue of
the distress and feelings of threat that some children routinely
experience surrounding their friends’ other friends or social activ-
ities with others. Drawing partly on the literature on adult rela-
tionships, we conceptualize this orientation as a disposition to
friendship jealousy, and an important conclusion of the present
study is that this disposition can be assessed with a good deal of
reliability and validity through children’s self-reports or the reports
of friends and nonfriend peers. Moreover, the present study pro-
vides beginning data on both the intrapersonal and interpersonal
correlates of individual differences in the disposition to jealousy
surrounding friends. It should be noted that no direct evidence
exists to support the claim that friendship jealousy in young
adolescence and romantic jealousy in adults share more than a
conceptual resemblance. It would be particularly interesting to
discover that individuals who are atypically jealous over friends
are also atypically jealous over their romantic partners later. How-
ever, there are also reasons to surmise that the factors that underpin
friendship and romantic jealousy differ in several essential respects
(see Roth & Parker, 2001). It also bears mentioning that although
the approach in the present research stresses self- or peer reports of
jealousy, understanding would undoubtedly be strengthened by
alternative assessment approaches, such as observational or phys-
iological assessments in more naturalistic settings. For example,
important strides have been made recently in the representation of
children’s behavior in observations of small groups (e.g., Lansford
& Parker, 1999). These techniques could be applied to the study of
jealous individuals.
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Received November 29, 2002
Revision received August 25, 2004
Accepted August 25, 2004 䡲
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