Pornographic jealousy: Scale construction and theory testing

The purpose of this research was to create a pornographic jealousy scale, determine its construct validity, and compare pornographic jealousy with the jealousy caused by a human rival. Jealousy is defined as the negative emotion created by the loss or possible loss of a romantic partner to a rival. Thus, jealousy involves three participants: the person, the person’s romantic partner, and a rival. We suggested the rival may be the romantic partner’s use of pornography. We wrote 25 items which seemed to measure pornographic jealousy. College students in heterosexual relationships (n = 307; 71.9% women) responded to the items and other measures. Analysis of the scale structure resulted in a 24 item measure with three subscales: Relationship Threat, Masturbation Disgust, and Self-Esteem Threat Pornographic Jealousy. The construct validity of the Pornographic Jealousy Scale was supported by positive correlations with the Interpersonal Jealousy Scale, Problematic Pornography Scale, and Perceptions of Partner Problematic Use Scale and negative correlations with the Frequency of Pornography Use Scale and Perceptions of Partner Frequency of Use Scale. According to the social cognitive theory of jealousy, loss of a partner to a rival involves both loss of relationship rewards (e.g., sex) and self-esteem. Pornographic jealousy seems to differ from the jealousy caused by a human rival in that it appears to threaten self-esteem more than relationship rewards.