Poster #201 - Jealousy Behaviors in Early Childhood: Associations with Attachment and Temperament

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Jealousy is a complex emotion experienced following a perception of lost attention from a valued individual to a rival (Bauminger, Chomsky-Smolkin, Orbach-Caspi, Zachor, & Levy-Shiff, 2008). Research has attempted to understand factors, such as attachment and temperament, related to individual differences in children’s jealousy behaviors. For example, secure children are less to likely cry, protest, and aggress toward their mothers (Teti & Ablard, 1989). Others have found that children high in activity level, anger, and distress to limitations are more likely to display jealousy behaviors and affect (Mize & Jones, 2012; Volling, McElwain, & Miller, 2002). The current study further examined the relative influence of attachment and temperament on jealousy expressions in different contexts.
Eighty-three children between 54- and 63-months-old (Mage=56.92 months) participated with their mothers in a lab session. To assess attachment and temperament mothers completed the Attachment Q-Set (Waters & Deane, 1985) and The Children’s Behavior Questionnaire Short Form (Rothbart et al., 2001). Children’s jealousy responses were observed during a simulation involving a baby doll that the children were lead to believe was a real baby (Hart & Behrens, 2013). There were three episodes: 1) the researcher held the baby, 2) the mother held the baby, 3) the mother told the baby she was holding her child’s favorite nursery rhyme twice (adapted from Bauminger & Kugelmass, 2013). The presence of types of externalizing and inhibited behaviors in each episode were coded (Harris & Hart, 2015) (interrater reliability on 20%: rs≥.80).
See table 1 for descriptives, correlations, and differences in jealousy responses within and among contexts. Regression models were built with attachment, negative affect, effortful control, and surgency/extraversion entered simultaneously as predictors. Models predicting externalizing in the first and second episodes were both significant (Table 2), with attachment, but not temperament, contributing to the models. Other analyses indicated that children demonstrated the most externalizing in the second episode (F(2,150)=8.84, p<.001) and the most inhibition in the third episode (F(2,151)=11.56, p<.001). Children were also more likely to exhibit inhibiting than externalizing behaviors in episodes one (t(81)=-1.85, p= .068) and three (t(81)=-6.83, p<.001).
The current study adds to our knowledge about how young children respond to jealousy-evoking events varying in context. Furthermore, the study emphasized how children’s attachment security (but not temperament) was more consistently associated with externalizing (but not inhibited) behaviors. Although attachment theory suggests that experiencing jealousy is a normative response to protect the relationship (Hart & Legerstee, 2010), our findings indicate the importance of secure bonds to ensure that the levels of jealousy remain at a lower, constructive level.

Authors

• Tia Murphy, Washington College
  Presenting Author

• Kelsey McCurdy, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brianna Jehl, University of Maryland Balitmore County
  Non-Presenting Author

• Megan Rowan, Washington College
  Non-Presenting Author