The Relationship of Personality, Gender Expression, and Jealousy in College Students

This study investigated the relationship of personality, gender expression, and jealousy. We used the IPIP-NEO-120 to measure personality to quantify the Five Factors of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. To measure jealousy and gender expression, we used the Self-Report Jealousy Scale (SRJ: Bringle, Roach, Andler, & Evanbeck, 1979) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979), respectively. We created a measure to examine individuals’ reported gender expression in various categories. Based on past research, we expected to find that the neuroticism and agreeableness factors of personality would be positively correlated with jealousy in all genders. We did not expect to find a correlation between jealousy and gender itself. Two hundred thirty-two undergraduate students enrolled at a Mid-Atlantic liberal arts university completed an online Qualtrics survey. Results show modest yet significant correlations of jealousy with gender expression, neuroticism, and openness. We did not find the significant correlation between jealousy and agreeableness that we expected. Understanding these relationships may offer insight into personality-related gender differences in jealousy and diminish gender stereotypes