Test · Relationships

Jealousy Test

A quiet look at how strongly jealousy shows up for you, and what it may be guarding. No judgment, about four minutes.

≈4 min Questions: 20

Two white swans gliding side by side on a still pond in warm evening light, with a wooden jetty and flower pots on the bank.

You know that feeling when a phone lights up and something in you tightens before you can say why? If you are here, you may be wondering what that is. This test does not decide whether you are a good person; it shows how jealousy works in you, through twenty short scenes. Choose the answer closest to where you are right now. It takes about four minutes, and at the end you get a quiet read on how strongly jealousy shows up. Maybe the real question is not whether you feel it, but what it is trying to protect.

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Your partner is a little distracted one evening. At what point does the thought that they might be drawn to someone else show up for you?
Picture your partner happily settled with someone else, just for a moment. How long does the sadness stay once the picture is gone?
A worry about your partner and someone else crosses your mind while their unlocked phone sits in the next room. How small can the trigger be before you look through it without their knowing?
Your partner has a close friend who is easy company and shares many of their evenings. How much of you wants to shape or limit that friendship?
Your partner spent a whole evening at a party talking with someone they know from university. Days later, what do you do with the memory?
At a dinner, your partner's attention drifts toward someone across the table. What does your temper do?
Your partner gets home later than planned and the story sounds a little thin. How far do the questions go?
Your partner spends a lot of time with someone from their climbing group, and nothing has happened. How much do you do to bring that time down?
Your partner tells you how they spent an evening without you. What does their account do for you?
You watch your partner light up while talking with someone else at a gathering. How does it land on your sense of where you stand?
Your partner's phone buzzes with a name you have wondered about, and they smile at the screen. What shows on your face and in your voice?
Your partner is invited to a weekend party where someone they click with is on the guest list. Nothing has happened between them. What do you do beforehand?
You are lying awake, and it crosses your mind that someday your partner could be unfaithful, though nothing of the kind has happened. How long does the thought stay?
Imagine your partner laughing close beside someone who is truly their type, in real detail. How much weight does that picture carry?
Something bothers you: a look, a message or a joke between your partner and a third person. Does it end up between you and that person?
Your partner is heading out on a work trip with a colleague they get along with. How much do you feel called to adjust, or to ask them to adjust?
Suppose this relationship ended. How much of your sense of being on solid ground would go with it?
Someone describes a scene: your partner and someone else lingering over coffee, heads close together. What does your body do?
A late reply arrives, or an unfamiliar name appears on your partner's screen. How much pull do you feel to check anything?
Your partner's calendar fills with events that put them near people you do not know. How much do you arrange in advance so that no opening appears?

Maryna Lyadneva psychologist

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How this test works

Where the questions come from, what the scale rests on, and why the result is not a diagnosis.

How strongly a person tends to feel jealousy in romantic relationships, seen through suspicious thinking, emotional upset, checking after a trigger, and acting ahead of events.

Author Maryna Lyadneva

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Methodology

In the test, jealousy is treated as one lasting tendency that shows itself in several ways. Twenty short scenes each offer five answers, and the answers add up to a single total, placed on one of four levels. The idea behind it is that a person's jealousy can be read from how hard the feeling hits, what they check once something stirs, what they arrange in advance, and where their thoughts go.

Some statements run in the opposite direction, so agreeing with them lowers the total. The levels are drawn where the meaning of the answer steps shifts, so they are not equal in size.

What the test cannot show: which of the four parts drives a total, since similar totals can hide different mixtures; what a person does once the feeling arrives; whether any behavior suits a particular relationship. Answers are what a person notices and is ready to say about themselves. The frame is romantic, though jealousy also appears among friends and at work, and nothing is split by gender, because the research on that is mixed.

For further reading: a reference definition of jealousy and background on how the emotion has been studied.

This test is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace a conversation with a specialist. It does not assess a partner or a relationship, only the tendency of the person answering.

Questions

Is it normal to feel jealous?

Most people feel it at some point, and it comes in degrees rather than being either there or not. A little of it is part of caring about someone. What differs between people is how strong it gets, and in romantic relationships that strength is what this test looks at.

What is the difference between jealousy and envy?

Jealousy needs a triangle: you, someone you love, and a third person who seems to threaten what you have. Envy is a pair: you and someone who has something you want. Every question here belongs to the first kind, and none asks what you would like to have that others do.

What does a jealousy test actually tell you?

It gives a single level of how strongly jealousy shows up in you, based on your own answers. Behind that level are upset feelings, worried thinking, checking after something stirs and planning ahead, all added together. It gives no type, and it says nothing about your partner or your relationship.

Why does jealousy get so strong?

Studies tie stronger jealousy to how much of a person's security is invested in one relationship, and to how easy or hard that person imagines it would be to find another. The test measures how strong the tendency is, not where it came from, so no result names a cause.

Can jealousy be managed?

Researchers keep two things apart: how strong the feeling is, and what a person does when it comes. Reactions vary widely, from raising it openly and mending things afterward to staying silent or keeping watch. Advice on managing jealousy is about that second part. The test only scores strength and leaves out how it is expressed.

Sources
  1. Pfeiffer, S. M., & Wong, P. T. P. (1989). Multidimensional jealousy. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6(2), 181–196.
  2. Buunk, B. P. (1997). Personality, birth order and attachment styles as related to various types of jealousy. Personality and Individual Differences, 23(6), 997–1006.
  3. White, G. L., & Mullen, P. E. (1989). Jealousy: Theory, Research, and Clinical Strategies. Guilford Press.