Attachment, Self-Esteem, and Emotions in Relationships

The primary goal of this research was to understand how an individual’s attachment style, self-esteem, feelings of jealousy, and emotional reactivity level relate to one another in a romantic relationship in the context of social media. There has been very little previous research regarding romantic relationships and social media, so the rationale for this study was to further examine how the context of social media is related to personal emotions in romantic relationships. There were 120 participants in this study who were recruited from a small liberal arts college campus and via social media. They were asked to read a scenario about their romantic partner in a situation involving social media. Then the participants completed measures of self-esteem, jealousy (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional), and emotional intensity. The findings showed that people with lower self-esteem reported experiencing more emotional jealousy. These findings imply that a person\u27s level of self esteem can predict the amount of emotional jealousy a person experiences in a romantic relationship in the context of social media