Infants' responses to different treatment by mother: Documenting jealousy in infants in India

The current study was a replication of previous studies that aimed to explore jealousy-type responses when infants experienced maternal inattentiveness by documenting these types of responses in Indian infants. Several previous studies in the Western culture have found that when infants are exposed to their mother positively attending to a life-like doll or a musical storybook, these infants display higher levels of negative affect and proximity behavior toward their mother. However, there have been no studies conducted outside Western cultures to explore this phenomenon. Therefore the main purpose of this study was to explore whether Indian infants also displayed higher levels of negative affect and showed more proximity behavior when their mother ignored them and positively attended to a life-like doll. Additionally, as in research using Western samples, the current study explored whether maternal characteristics such as potential symptoms of depression and maternal sensitivity would have effects on infant responses. Fifty 10-month-infant with their mothers participated in this study located in a city in India, comparing infant responses while their mothers attended to a lifelike baby doll and a story book. Consistent with earlier findings, infants showed higher levels of negative affect and were less distant toward their mother and touched their mother more in the Doll condition. Moreover, they were also less distant from their mothers in the doll condition. Infants of mothers with potential symptoms of depression remained more distant from them in the doll condition and infants of mothers who were more sensitive demonstrated more negative affect in the doll condition. Findings suggest a high possibility of jealousy developing in early infancy across Western and Non-Western cultures, suggesting a universal biological mechanism of development.