Jealousy in Sport: Exploring Jealousy's Relationship to Cohesion

Abstract

The present study continued the development and revision of the Sport Jealousy Scale (SJS) and investigated the relationships among jealousy, cohesion, and satisfaction with athletes. The original SJS (now SJS-II) was revised and given to 236 Division I athletes along with the Group Cohesion Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985 Carron, A. V. , Widmeyer, W. N. and Brawley, L. R. 1985. The development of an instrument to assess cohesion in sport teams: The Group Environment Questionnaire. Journal of Sport Psychology, 7: 244–266. [CSA] [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] ), the Revised Self-Report Jealousy Scale (SRJS-II; Bringle, Roach, Andler, & Evenbeck, 1977 Bringle, R. B. , Roach, S. , Andler, C. and Evenbeck, S. Presented at the annual meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Chicago, IL. Correlates of jealousy, [Google Scholar] ), and the Satisfaction Questionnaire ( Widmeyer & Williams, 1991 Widmeyer, W. N. and Williams, J. M. 1991. Predicting cohesion in coacting sport. Small Group Research, 22(4): 548–570. [CSA] [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] ). Jealousy was negatively correlated with both cohesion (r = −.23, p < .01) and satisfaction (r = −.22, p < .01). Following Baron and Kenny's (1986) Baron, R. M. and Kenny, D. A. 1986. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51: 1173–1182. [PUBMED] [INFOTRIEVE] [CSA] [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] three-step model for testing mediation, satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between jealousy and cohesion. The results confirm the existence of jealousy in sport, provide psychometric evidence for a measure of sport jealousy, validate expected relationships among jealousy, cohesion, and satisfaction, and provide initial information on gender and sport differences in jealousy and cohesion. These findings will help researchers continue to examine jealousy and its correlates in sport teams, and may help coaches and professionals working with teams maintain positive team dynamics.