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The development of jealousy

Jealousy is a response to a situation in which a person feels a combination of different emotions, such as love, anger, sadness and fear when an affectionate interaction is happening between a loved one and someone else. This paper discusses the definition and onset of infant jealousy, the physiological basis of jealousy, whether maternal factors play a role, as well as studies on jealousy and EEG patterns. It has been argued that infants, as young as six-months-old display jealous-like behaviors. During jealousy evocation conditions, infants demonstrate negative emotions such as protesting or crying, diminished distancing, and heightened gaze toward their mother during maternal inattention. Approach/withdrawal behaviors and electroencephalography (EEG) activation were studied in the context of an infant jealousy paradigm. In this investigation, 45 mother-infants dyads were exposed to a social versus non-social condition during maternal inattention. During the social condition, infants demonstrated increased approach-style gaze and reach and negative affect. EEG was collected during all conditions on a subsample of 15 infants and in agreement with adult jealousy literature (Harmon-Jones, Peterson, & Harris, 2009), infants displayed left midfrontal EEG asymmetry, and displayed more approach motivations during the social doll condition indicative of jealousy approach motivations. / by Alexis K. Blau. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_3558
ContributorsBlau, Alexis K., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
PublisherFlorida Atlantic University
Source SetsFlorida Atlantic University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatviii, 43 p. : ill., electronic
Rightshttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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