Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

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.

Extent

viii, 43 p. : ill.

Comments

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.|by Alexis K. Blau.

Identifier

FADT2953203

Format

pdf

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