Identification of Mediated and Face-To-Face Communicative Responses to Retroactive Jealousy and Their Relationships with Meaning Maintenance Strategies

This study identified face-to-face and mediated communicative responses to retroactive jealousy. Specifically, this study synthesized qualitative data from written descriptions of retroactive jealousy experiences with quantitative data from communicative responses to jealousy measures to determine how people express retroactive jealousy. To advance theorizing on the specialness meaning framework model of jealousy, communicative responses to jealousy were linked to three meaning maintenance strategies described in the meaning maintenance model. The results suggest that people engage in a variety of communicative responses to retroactive jealousy. Additionally, communicative responses to jealousy functionally serve some meaning maintenance strategies.