reliability and validity of the portuguese version of the ...

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Dimensions/subscales: Reactive jealousy, Anxious jealousy, and Possessive jealousy. Attitudes toward Infidelity Scale | ATIS; Whatley, 2012. Investment Model ...
RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE PORTUGUESE VERSION OF THE REVISED ANTICIPATED SEXUAL JEALOUSY SCALE Alexandra Martins, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra I FCT – SFRH/BD/100117/2014 Stephanie Alves, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra I FCT – SFRH/BD/102717/2014 Isabel Narciso, Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon Maria Cristina Canavarro, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra Marco Pereira, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra I FCT – IF/00402/2014

Jornadas Internacionais do CINEICC | 1º Congresso Nacional da APTC | November 2015 | Coimbra

BACKGROUND Jealousy plays an important role in relationship experience. In this context, it is important to attest that assessment instruments are validated and correspond to suitable conceptualizations of romantic jealousy. A number of questionnaires have been developed to measure romantic jealousy, which were based on different theoretical conceptualizations; however, minimal research has tested and applied these measures. The way that romantic jealousy is defined has crucial implications for how the construct is measured. Jealousy is frequently conceptualized as multidimensional and several typologies of jealousy have been proposed. There is a general consent that romantic jealousy involves a complex combination of emotions, thoughts and behaviors that are experienced in response to the real, imagined or expected emotional and/or sexual involvement of the partner with someone else. Some typologies discriminate between three types of jealousy. In particular, Buunk (1997), and Buunk and Dijkstra (2006) distinguish between reactive, anxious and possessive jealousy. Reactive jealousy is the degree to which individuals experience negative emotions when their partner is or has been emotionally and/or sexually unfaithful. Anxious jealousy refers to a process in which the individual ruminates about and cognitively generates images of a partner’s infidelity. Finally, possessive jealousy refers to the considerable effort that jealous individuals can go to prevent contact of their partner with other individuals. To assess these three types of jealousy, Buunk (1997) developed the Revised Anticipated Sexual Jealousy Scale (RASJS), which is an adapted version of the Anticipated Sexual Jealousy Scale (ASJS; Buunk, 1990); the ASJS only measured reactive jealousy. Given the limited validation studies of the RASJS, the aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of the European Portuguese version of the RASJS.

METHODS Participants The sample consisted of 395 women (Mean age = 23.19 years; SD = 3.59) and 183 men (Mean age = 23.71 years; SD = 3.48), who indicated they were in an exclusive dating relationship for an average of 34 months (SD = 26.63; range: 1-180). Most participants were college students (63.8%), lived in urban areas (72.1%) and were catholic (66.3%).

Figure 1. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Revised Anticipated Sexual Jealousy Scale

Content validity

Measures Revised Anticipated Sexual Jealousy Scale | RASJS; Buunk, 1997 Dimensions/subscales: Reactive jealousy, Anxious jealousy, and Possessive jealousy Attitudes toward Infidelity Scale | ATIS; Whatley, 2012 Investment Model Scale | IMS; Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998 Dimensions/subscales: Satisfaction, Quality of alternatives, Investment size, and Commitment Experience of Close Relationships – Short Form | ECR-SF; Wei, Russell, Mallinckodt, & Vogel, 2007 Dimensions/subscales: Avoidance and Anxiety

RESULTS Construct validity Exploratory Factor Analysis The exploratory factor analysis (EFA with Varimax rotation) yielded a three-factor solution, which accounted for 64.8% of the variance (cf. Table 1). This structure was consistent with the original version of the RASJS (Reactive jealousy, Anxious jealousy, and Possessive jealousy).

The three factors of the scale were significantly associated with each other, which demonstrate the existence of content validity of the RASJS. The correlations between the factors were positive and small to moderate, with a variation between .22 (Anxious and Reactive jealousy) and .47 (Anxious and Possessive jealousy).

Correlations with other instruments First, it was examined the correlations between the factors of the RASJS and the attachment dimensions anxiety and avoidance. The three types of jealousy were significantly associated with attachment-related anxiety. Attachmentrelated avoidance was negatively associated with reactive jealousy and positively associated with anxious jealousy (cf. Table 2). The correlations between the three types of jealousy and the measure of attitudes toward infidelity and the questionnaire assessing the constructs of the investment model are presented in Table 2. Overall, the correlations were small and often non-significant, suggesting discriminant validity of the RASJS.

Table 1. Distribution of the Items by Factors 1 E3TC_08 E3TC_07 E3TC_10 E3TC_06 E3TC_09 E3TC_14 E3TC_11 E3TC_13 E3TC_15 E3TC_12 E3TC_05 E3TC_03 E3TC_04 E3TC_01 E3TC_02

2

3

.92 .88 .86 .80 .72 .78 .77 .72 .71 .64 .88 .80 .78 .78 .42

Table 2. Correlations between the Three Types of Jealousy Assessed by the RASJS and the Attachment Dimensions, Attitudes toward Infidelity and Constructs of the Investment Model ECR-SF Anxiety Avoidance ATIS Attitudes toward infidelity IMS Quality of alternatives Investment Satisfaction Commitment

Reactive jealousy

Anxious jealousy

Possessive jealousy

.15** -.09*

.49** .14**

.34** .06

-.25**

-.02

-.06

-.21** .20** .05 .22**

.04 .06 -.22** -.06

-.01 .14** .17** -.03

*p < .05; **p < .01

Reliability Confirmatory Factor Analysis Confirmatory factor analysis corroborated the original three-domain structure (cf. Figure 1), χ2 = 411.32, df = 85, p < .001; CFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.08 (90% CI 0.07–0.09).

The Portuguese version of the RASJS showed acceptable reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha for the three types of jealousy were: Reactive jealousy (α = 0.77), Anxious jealousy (α = 0.92), and Possessive jealousy (α = 0.81).

CONCLUSIONS The results of the present study provide preliminary evidence supporting both reliability and validity of the RASJS and attest its use in the assessment of romantic jealousy in the Portuguese population. This measure offers many advantages, which include its multidimensionality, easy administration and shortness. This scale may be particularly important for clinical practice, once represent a time efficient way to collect information about jealousy in romantic relationships. In this context, the RASJS has the potential to be used as an important tool to guide assessment and treatment of individuals and couples with relationship difficulties, and therefore may contribute to protect against negative relational outcomes.

URL I www.fpce.uc.pt/saude E-mail I [email protected]