The Correlation Study Between Dubious Relationships and Future Relationships: Jealousy as Mediator

• Main Authors: Kuo, I-Hsiu, 郭怡秀
• Other Authors: 危芷芬
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/j3xwzg

碩士 === 臺北市立大學 === 心理與諮商學系 === 106 === The purpose of this study was to predict the future development of dubious intimate relationships of merely dubious relationships and pre-romantic relationships and test if jealousy is a mediator. Dubious intimate relationships lie between friendships and romantic relationships. Two kinds of dubious relationship were distinguished, namely pre-romantic relationships and merely dubious relationships (Kuo & Wei, 2012, 2013). The former indicates the phase in preparation for forthcoming romantic relationships, whereas the latter implies that people would rather stay in the ambiguous state of intimacy (Kuo & Wei, 2013). Relational uncertainty appears not only to coincide with negative feelings, but also to be convertive (Afifi & Reichert, 1996; Bevan, 2004; Dainton & Aylor, 2001; Knobloch, 2006; Knobloch & Solomon, 2002; Knobloch & Theiss, 2011). Bevan (2004) indicated that individuals cope spontaneously to reduce relational uncertainty when they feel jealousy. Therefore, it was inferred that jealousy pushed dubious and pre-romantic relationships into different directions. Participants were invited to answer on mysurvey, which is an internet questionnaire platform. A total of 282 participants were recruited from Facebook and PTT by convenience and snowball sampling, including 115 males, 165 females and 1 other gender, with a mean age of 25.65. Those who had no experience of dubious intimate relationships were excluded. The remaining participants were requested to categorize their recent dubious intimate relationship experience. Then they were randomly assigned by a Java algorithm to one of three jealous situations: sexual intimacy, being attracted by others, and past affairs. After participants reporting jealous experience in these situations, they then answered future development of dubious intimate relationship, including remaining in dubious intimate relationships, entering into a romantic relationship, or drifting apart from each other. According to the result of Multivariate analysis of covariance, hierarchical regression and Sobel’s t test, The following hypotheses were supported: H1: type of dubious intimate relationships predicted future development; H3: type of dubious intimate relationships predicted jealousy; H4: type of jealous situation predicted jealousy; H5: jealousy predicted future development of dubious intimate relationships. And some hypotheses were partially supported: H2: type of jealous situation predicted future development of dubious intimate relationships and H6: jealousy mediated between type of dubious intimate relationship, jealous situation, and future development.