Abstract
Individuals generally experience several emotions when confronted with an unfaithful mate. Such observations have led some scholars to propose that jealousy is a compound emotion. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the concept of jealousy as a combination of primary emotions is an artifact of the failure to control for the focus of concern. The subjects were 149 undergraduates who read jealousy and nonjealousy scenarios and indicated the emotions they believed the partner of a relationship experienced in response to the actions of the mate. The results indicated that manipulation of the focus of concern was a more parsimonious explanation of the results than the assumption that the subjects were basing their responses upon a subjective experience of a compound emotion.
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Hupka, R.B. Jealousy: Compound emotion or label for a particular situation?. Motiv Emot 8, 141–155 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993070
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993070