CBT and jealousy

The Spring, 1996 volume of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy is a Special Issue on Morbid Jealousy which contains a series of five articles which present several different approaches to CBT with jealousy and some relevant empirical findings. If you can locate the journal, I think you'll find it useful.

I did a quick literature search and didn't find much else. Here are the other references I spotted:

Carson, C. L.; Cupach, W. R. (2000). Fueling the flames of the green-eyed monster: The role of ruminative thought in reaction to romantic jealousy. Western Journal of Communication,64, 308-329. ABSTRACT - Examined factors predicted to influence responses to romantic jealousy. 210 18-44 yr old college students in romantic relationships completed scales measuring relationship-specific linking (RSL), the belief that a specific relationship is essential to one's happiness, relationship-specific rumination (RSR), possessiveness, trust, and communicative responses to jealousy. Results showed there were no correlations between RSL and RSR. RSL was weakly associated with possessiveness, compensatory restoration, negative affect expression, and violence toward objects. As predicted, RSR was negatively associated with trust, and positively associated with possessiveness, surveillance/restriction, manipulation, relationship threat, rival contact, compensatory restoration, negative affect expression, signs of possession, derogation of competitors, distributive communication, violent communication, violence toward objects, active distancing, and avoidance/denial. These findings suggest that jealous rumination is an important cognitive mechanism that motivates some individuals to enact counterproductive communicative responses to jealousy.

Moore, T. M.; Eisler, R. M.; Franchina, J. J. (2000). Causal attributions and affective responses to provocative female partner behavior by abusive and nonabusive males. Journal of Family Violence, 15, 69-80. ABSTRACT - Examined the effects of the degree of female partner provocation on cognitive attributions and affective responses in verbally abusive and nonabusive college males. In Phase 1, 116 Ss listened to audiotapes of hypothetical dating situations in which the female partner's behavior was nonprovocative or moderately provocative; in Phase 2, 105 Ss listened to audiotapes of the female partner's behavior as nonprovocative or highly provocative. Results from Phase 1 showed that abusive males reported reliably greater negative attributions and feelings of jealousy, rejection, and abandonment in response to moderately provocative partner behavior than did nonabusive males. Results from Phase 2 showed that abusive males attributed greater negative intent and feelings of rejection and abandonment to both highly provocative and nonprovocative partner behavior than did nonabusive males. Negative attributions and feelings of jealousy, rejection, and abandonment increased reliably from moderately provocative to highly provocative female behavior for abusive and nonabusive males, who differed reliably from each other. Implications for the assessment and treatment of abusive men were discussed.

Shackelford, T. K.; LeBlanc, G. J.; Drass, E. (2000). Emotional reactions to infidelity. Cognition & Emotion, 14, 643-659. ABSTRACT - Sought to identify emotional reactions to a partner's sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity. In a preliminary study, 53 college students (mean age 19 yrs) nominated emotional reactions to a partner's sexual and emotional infidelity. In a 2nd study, 655 students (mean age 19.4 yrs) rated each emotion for how likely it was to occur following sexual and emotional infidelity. Principal components analysis revealed 15 emotion components, including Hostile/Vengeful, Depressed, and Sexually aroused. The authors conducted repeated measures analyses of variance on the 15 components, with Ss sex as the between-subjects factor and infidelity type as the within-subjects factor. A main effect for sex obtained for 9 components. For example, men scored higher on Homicidal/Suicidal, whereas women scored higher on Undesirable/Insecure. A main effect for infidelity type obtained for 12 components. For example, Ss endorsed Nauseated/Repulsed as more likely to follow sexual infidelity and Undesirable/Insecure as more likely to follow emotional infidelity. Discussion addresses limitations of this research, and highlights the need for an integrative theory of emotional reactions to infidelity.

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