Sex differences in jealousy over Facebook activity

• Females are more prone to jealousy over Facebook activity than are males.
• Males are aware of the sex difference in jealousy; females are not.
• Misunderstandings about Facebook use are a source of problems in romantic relationships.

Forty heterosexual undergraduate students (24 females, 16 males) who were currently in a romantic relationship filled out a modified version of The Facebook Jealousy questionnaire (Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009). The questionnaire was filled out twice, once with the participant’s own personal responses, and a second time with what each participant imagined that his/her romantic partner’s responses would be like. The data indicated that females were more prone to Facebook-evoked feelings of jealousy and to jealousy-motivated behavior than males. Males accurately predicted these sex differences in response to the jealousy scale, but females seemed unaware that their male partners would be less jealous than themselves.