Introduction

Abstract

To establish the context that set the stage for laboratory research on jealousy in infants, this chapter provides an account of relevant social and historical events and influential thought that took place during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Traditions based on psychoanalytic theory evolved so that jealousy in infants was recognized, but in different ways, first as a sexually-driven phenomenon of the mother-father-infant triad, and then also as a non-sexual feature of the mother-child-child triad. The latter theme remains prominent among clinicians, researchers, and theorists from a wide range of perspectives. Later, Bowlby’s theory of attachment drew on observations of intense jealousy among institutionalized toddlers over favored caregivers. He recognized jealousy as an expression of attachment behavior and focused on its roots in dyadic rather than triadic relationships. Contrary to popular wisdom that jealousy is exacerbated by excessive levels of parental love, he considered whether it arises in cases where parental love has been insufficient. These views helped stimulate current interest in jealousy’s emergent form, and the origins of individual differences.

On how we answer these questions turn all our practices of child-rearing

—Bowlby, 1973, p. 4