Jealousy is a complex social emotion triggered by the fear of losing a valued relationship due to the perceived threat of a rival (Andiappan & Dufour, 2020). While previous research has often focused on studying jealousy from the perspective of the jealous individual, limited attention has been devoted to understand its effects on the valued partner, particularly within the workplace context. To address this gap, we drew upon the emotions as social information model to examine how the display of jealousy by subordinates may influence the emotional and behavioral responses of the valued partner, which is the leader in a professional setting. With a multi-wave, multi-source field study (Study 1) and a scenario-based experiment (Study 2), we found that, with lower leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation, subordinate jealousy display would elicit leader anger, reducing leader adherence to justice rules. In contrast, with higher LMX differentiation, subordinate jealousy display would lead to leader guilt, enhancing leader justice rule adherence. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the interpersonal consequences of jealousy display at work.
