Handbook of Jealousy E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1267

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Through a compilation of original articles, the Handbook of Jealousy offers an integrated portrait of the emerging areas of research into the nature of jealousy and a forum for discussing the implications of the findings for theories of emotional and socio-cognitive development.

• Presents the most recent findings and theories on jealousy across a range of contexts and age-stages of development
• Includes 23 original articles with empirical findings and detailed commentaries by leading experts in the field
• Serves as a valuable resource for professionals in the fields of clinical psychology, psychiatry, and social work, as well as scholars in the fields of psychology, family studies, sociology, and anthropology

Leseprobe

Contents

Contributors

Preface

Introduction

Part I: Background

1 Jealousy in Western History

Notes

2 Loss, Protest, and Emotional Development

Attachment as a Monotropic or Polytropic System

Emotional Development

Meaning of Behavior

Protest over Loss

References

3 Jealousy and Romantic Love

Jealousy and Envy

The Personal Comparative Concern

Does My Partner Belong to Me?

Parental and Romantic Love

Jealousy and Exclusivity

What Comes Next?

Acknowledgments

References

Part II: Socio-Biological Foundations

4 The Ontogenesis of Jealousy in the First Year of Life

Jealousy as a Dimension of Temperament

References

5 Neural Structures of Jealousy

Social Bonds and Separation Distress

From Separation Distress to Jealousy

Social Exclusion from Peer Groups

Conclusions

Note

References

6 The Evolutionary Sources of Jealousy

Utility of Animal Models

Basic Emotional Substrates of Jealousy

Once More: Is Jealousy Initially an “Objectless” Primary-Emotional Process?

Jealousy: From Primary Process to Tertiary Process Levels of Analysis

Neurological and Gender Aspects of Jealousy

Jealousy in Animals

Toward a Neurochemistry of Jealousy

Evolutionary Reflections

Conclusions

Notes

References

7 Sibling Rivalry in the Birds and Bees

Rivalry and the “Thrifty” Parent

Antecedents of Sibling Aggression

How is Rivalry Manifest?

Parental Manipulation of Sibling Rivalry

Do Parents Interfere in Sibling Aggression?

Conflict Resolution over Sibling Rivalry in Mammals and Birds

Conflict Resolution over Sibling Rivalry at an Evolutionary Level

Sibling Harmony and the Cost of Selfishness

Birds, Bees, and Humans?

References

8 Green Eyes in Bio-Cultural Frames

Cultures of Jealousy?

Continuities in Jealousy?

Biological Openness and Experiential Chains

How Much Love Does Jealousy Need?

Conclusions

Note

References

Part III: Cognitive Underpinnings

9 Social Bonds, Triadic Relationships, and Goals

Infants’ Social Awareness During the First Year of Life

The Concept of Jealousy

Prerequisites for Jealousy

Infant Reactions to Social Exclusion

The Interpersonal Jealousy System

The Emergence of Human Jealousy

Preconditions for the Emergence of Human Jealousy

Summary and Future Directions

Acknowledgments

References

10 Jealousy in Infant–Peer Trios

The Dyadic Framework and Its Limitations

Early Intersubjectivity is a Form of Narcissism

Inescapable Thirdness: Theory

Toward Triadic Measures: Method

The “Babies in Groups” Paradigm

Theoretical Implications: Jealousy and the Development of Thirdness

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

11 Parental Reports of Jealousy in Early Infancy

Introduction

Method

Key Findings

Discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

12 Jealousy in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

Introduction

Jealousy: Basic or Secondary Emotion?

Jealousy in ASD: Expression and Understanding

Affective and Cognitive Correlates of Jealousy in ASD and Typical Development

Social versus Nonsocial Examination of Jealousy

The Expression and Understanding of Social-Complex Emotions in ASD

Summary and Conclusions: The Theoretical Implications of the Understanding of Jealousy as a Secondary or Basic Emotion in Typical Development and in ASD

References

13 Is Jealousy a Complex Emotion?

Introduction

The Development of Social Emotions

What is “Complex” about Complex Emotions?

The Case of Jealousy

Identifying with Others

The Case of Autism

Conclusion

References

14 What Is Missing in the Study of the Development of Jealousy?

Emotional Development: A Principle to Keep in Mind

What Is Jealousy and What Is Its Importance?

The Apparent Paradox of Early Jealousy

The Behavioral Modes of Jealousy

Implications for Empirical Investigations of the Prerequisites for Jealousy

Acknowledgments

Note

References

Part IV: Social-Emotional Foundations within the Parent–Child–Sibling Context

15 A Theoretical Model of the Development of Jealousy

When Is Jealousy Displayed?

Where Is Jealousy Displayed?

How Is Jealousy Displayed?

Why Is Jealousy Displayed?

A Theoretical Model of the Development of Jealousy

References

16 Jealousy and Attachment

Introduction

Attachment in Behavioral Genetic Perspective

A New Approach

Evolutionary Models of Attachment Security and Insecurity

Findings from Sibling Studies

Conclusions

References

17 The Development of Sibling Jealousy

Theoretical Background

Sibling Jealousy and Rivalry in Early Childhood

Sibling Jealousy and Rivalry in Middle Childhood

Sibling Jealousy and Rivalry in Adolescence

Sibling Jealousy and Rivalry in Adulthood

Child and Family Correlates of Sibling Jealousy

A Study of the Family and Child Correlates of Sibling Jealousy

Conclusions and Directions for Future Research on Sibling Jealousy

Acknowledgment

References

18 The Socialization of Sibling Rivalry

Contextual Determinants of Adults’ Perceptions of Child Misconduct

Child Gender as a Contributor to Adults’ Perceptions

Adults’ Intrapersonal Reactions to Sibling Rivalry

Implications for the Socialization of Sibling Rivalry

Future Research

References

Part V: Socio-Emotional Foundations within Other Eliciting Contexts

19 Family Triangular Interactions in Infancy

A Functional Perspective on Emotion in Triangular Contexts

Triadic Paradigms

Study 1: The 4-Month-Old’s Triangular Competence under a Still-Face Condition

Study 2: The Infant as Third Party to her Parents’ Dialogue at 3 and 9 Months

Discussion

Authors’ Note

References

20 Culture, Parenting, and the Development of Jealousy

Jealousy as an Evolutionary-Based Phenomenon

Cultural Antecedents of Jealousy

Culturally Shaped Strategies for the Distribution of Parental Attention

Parental Management of Jealousy across Cultures

Conclusion: Cultural Models of Socialization

References

21 Social Class, Competition, and Parental Jealousy in Children’s Sports

Introduction

Anthropological Approaches to Jealousy in Children’s Sports

The Attractions of Community Sport

Inequalities and Jealousy in Community Sport

Conclusions

Notes

References

22 When Friends Have Other Friends

Toward Conceptualizing Friendship Jealousy in Childhood and Adolescence

Individual Differences in Proneness to Friendship Jealousy

Origins of Individual Differences in Friendship Jealousy

Friendship Jealousy and Intra- and Interpersonal Adjustment

Summary and Conclusions

Acknowledgments

References

23 Jealousy in Adulthood

Theoretical Approaches to Jealousy

Appraisals in Jealousy

Attachment Style and Jealousy

Jealousy and Relationship Factors

Jealousy and Attributions

The Rival and Jealousy

Gender Differences in Jealousy

New Methodologies for the Study of Adult Jealousy

Concluding Remarks

References

Index

In memory of my grandparents

Sara, Simon, Hannah, Herschel

                                                    S.H.

I dedicate this book to my parents

Johanna (Ansje) Koreman and Pieter Legerstee

(The Netherlands),

my children and to all children

                                                                           M.L.

This paperback edition first published 2013© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for Chapter 2 © 2010 Michael Lewis

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2010)

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ISBN 978-1-4051-8579-0 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-118-57187-3 (paperback)

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Cover image: Johan August Strindberg, Night of Jealousy, Berlin, 1893. Photo: The Art Archive / Strindberg Museum Stockholm / Alfredo Dagli Orti. Cover design by Nicki Averill Design & Illustration

Contributors

Julie Wargo Aikins, University of Connecticut, USA

Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Nirit Bauminger, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Ben S. Bradley, Charles Stuart University, Bathurst, Australia

Joseph J. Campos, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Audun Dahl, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Ryan S. Darby, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

Riccardo Draghi-Lorenz, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK

Noel Dyck, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Baila Ellenbogen, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Nicolas Favez, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

R. M. Pasco Fearon, University of Reading, UK

Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge, Unité de Recherche-CEF, Prilly, Switzerland

Scott Forbes, University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Christine R. Harris, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

Sybil L. Hart, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA

R. Peter Hobson, Tavistock Clinic and University College, London, UK

Lisa M. H. Jackey, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Heidi Keller, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

Denise E. Kennedy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Sara A. Kruse, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

Bettina Lamm, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

Maria Legerstee, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Michael Lewis, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey—Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Francesco Lopes, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Gabriela Markova, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Heidi Marsh, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tom Nienhuis, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Jaak Panksepp, College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

Jeffrey G. Parker, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

Vasudevi Reddy, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

Chloé Lavanchy Scaiola, Unité de Recherche-CEF, Prilly, Switzerland

Peter N. Stearns, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

James Stieben, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Marinus H. van IJzendoorn, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Brenda L. Volling, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Eric A. Walle, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Preface

According to an Old Russian proverb, “jealousy and love are sisters.” This seems to suggest that both come from the same brain regions, and because love exists early in life, so might jealousy. Although accounts of infant jealousy date back many centuries, the scientific study of jealousy only started in the mid 1990s, generating but a paucity of information. The idea to address this shortcoming in a volume on Jealousy was sparked by very stimulating discussions I had with Joseph Campos and Sybil Hart at the International Conference of Infant Studies in Kyoto (2006), and again with Sybil at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in 2007. The SRCD symposium was especially revealing. It suggested two important things, namely (1) that the preconditions for the emergence of human jealousy could be elicited during the first months of life; and also in older children with autism; and (2) that there was little systematic knowledge about its development and the factors which influenced its expression. While at SRCD, Nirit Bauminger, Sybil Hart, and I discussed what might be the socio-cognitive and socio-biological foundations of jealousy. How do environmental factors such as parental rearing practices affect the expression of jealousy and how does the age of the person and her culture affect the presentation of jealousy?

What we ultimately discovered was that because little scientific data was available on the development of jealousy, few people actually believed that jealousy could present itself during infancy as a normal expression against exclusion by a loved one. However, infants have an innate desire to form social bonds and jealousy could be seen as a reaction to the presence of one who threatens this social bond. Would infants be able to perceive such a threat? If so, at what age and more importantly, in what context would infants express jealousy, and what would this reveal about the socio-cognitive underpinnings of jealousy? Another difficulty was that jealousy is not a single emotion. Jealousy is more appropriately labeled “a state” that one experiences and that, depending on the context, may conjure up emotions such as sadness (loss), anger (betrayal), fear/anxiety (loneliness), etc. Consequently, jealousy per se does not have accompanying coherent infrastructures in the brain and thus mapping jealousy onto a specific region is not possible.

It became clear that there was a lot of unpublished work out there that could inform about the development of jealousy in infants and children. I suggested to Sybil that we publish an edited book that focuses on the development of jealousy. We created the Handbook of Jealousy: Theory, Research, and Multidisciplinary Approaches to provide a comprehensive picture of jealousy, dealing with its functions, origins, and differentiation from infancy to its subsequent development. Twenty-one chapters and two commentaries chart how jealousy unfolds while also looking at the familial, cultural, cognitive, and biological factors that drive its development.

The Handbook is organized into five parts.

Part I: Background. In order to see how current understanding of jealousy has been formulated, it is important to put jealousy into context. Chapter 1 discusses social, cultural, and political trends during the twentieth century which gave rise to current thought on the topic of jealousy. Chapter 2 discusses issues which pertain to the interpretation of infants' responses that may indicate jealousy and distinctions between these and similar ones involving loss within social contexts that include attachment figures. Chapter 3 clarifies the importance of exclusivity in adult romantic jealousy by distinguishing between jealousy and envy, and examining the sense of belonging and concerns over comparisons with a rival that are key components of jealousy.

Part II: Socio-Biological Foundations. The development of jealousy has a starting point and this section provides an account of the socio-biological foundations of jealousy. Chapter 4 explores facial affects associated with the presentation of nascent jealousy during the first year, and proposes a model in which jealousy is conceptualized as an independently organized dimension of temperament. Chapter 5 speculates on the type of neural structures that might be activated when infants experience social exclusion among loved ones and peers, thereby delivering a unique report on the integration of neuroscience and infant behaviors. Chapter 6 provides insight into the evolutionary sources of jealousy by suggesting that jealousy relies on learning and socio-cognitive abilities, but may have a head start as well, in that it is more clearly “prepared” to take on its core form. Chapter 7 examines sibling rivalries in non-human species, and modes of responses to intra-familial competition that may underpin human behavior among siblings. Chapter 8 provides a detailed commentary of the above works and reflects what a world without jealousy would be like—a world without an overriding desire for an exclusive relationship.

Part III: Cognitive Underpinnings. It has often been argued that because jealousy is a complex emotion, it cannot have its onset until certain cognitive prerequisites are in place. Chapter 9 establishes the existence of socio-cognitive prerequisites in the development of jealousy in infants, such as social bonds, perception of triadic relationships, and awareness of goals, and with a creative experiment shows that emotions of jealousy are observable early in the first year. Chapter 10 is suggestive of jealousy among infant–peer trios, where vocalizations and gestures are being used in a seeming attempt to elicit or maintain the attention of a favored partner while in competition with a rival infant. Chapter 11 details rich parental reports on sibling interactions showing thwarting or open hostility toward a rival. Finally, Chapters 12 and 13 shed light on whether jealousy is a complex emotion with research on jealousy in people with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) who have emotional deficits but often only minor cognitive impairments to highlight what capacities are necessary for experiencing jealousy. Chapter 14 provides commentary on the previous chapters and highlights issues in need of attention and elaboration in order to shed light on the processes responsible for the development of jealousy.

Part IV: Social-Emotional Foundations within the Parent–Child–Sibling Context. Early presentations of jealousy often take place within the parent–child–sibling context. This section explores the manner in which these are presented, and how they differ with child characteristics, family dynamics, and parental attitudes. Chapter 15 proposes a model of jealousy's development through the integration of theoretical and empirical works on jealousy's presentation in different eliciting conditions, its functions and individual differences. Chapter 16 explores variation among twins in terms of attachment security, and reports findings which lead to suggesting that quality of attachment may be shaped by processes akin to jealousy that reflect sibling competition. Chapter 17 examines family correlates of children's responses to differential treatment and findings of research on sibling jealousy in a sample of toddler and preschool siblings during a triadic laboratory paradigm. Chapter 18 examines parental attitudes toward sibling conflict, how these are distinguished from those toward child misbehavior in other settings, and how they are shaped by concepts of jealousy as an expression of love.

Part V: Socio-Emotional Foundations within Other Eliciting Contexts. Chapter 19 details the young infant's awareness and involvement in social exchanges between mother and father, and the challenges of being faced by social exclusion. Chapter 20 sheds light on the evolutionary basis of jealousy before turning to a discussion of cultural conditions that influence the manner in which jealousy is expressed in Western and non-Western caregiving settings. Chapter 21 presents an ethnographic account and anthropological analysis of jealousy as it is encountered among children and youths involved in sports in Canadian cities. Chapter 22 examines friendship jealousy among children and young adolescents, as well vulnerability to jealousy in relation to child characteristics, including age and gender. Chapter 23 focuses on jealousy in adult romantic relationships through attention to factors that impact its elicitation, experience, and expression, including adult attachment styles, relationship variables, attribution processes, rival characteristics, and gender.

This Handbook tells the story of the development of jealousy. This story should be intriguing and important to everyone who is interested in the mind, brain, and in the development of love; in short, in what it means to be human.

I would like to express my appreciation to the wonderful scholars for their excellent contributions, which they produced in a timely fashion. The new scientific literature on jealousy depends, like any science, on the work of other scientists. I hope their work is acknowledged accurately through the inclusion of detailed and extensive end-of-chapter notes and reference lists presented by the contributors.

I am deeply grateful to my mentors and colleagues who gave feedback on the original proposal: Marinus H. van IJzendoorn of the University of Leiden, Alan Fogel of the University of Utah, Stuart Shanker of York University, and Colwyn Trevarthen, University of Edinburgh. I also like to thank the very talented Christine Cardone, Executive Editor of Psychology at Wiley-Blackwell, who shared our enthusiasm for this project, and to Steve Smith who saw the project through. I further express my gratitude to the efficient and always gracious Constance Adler, editorial assistant and to Hannah Rolls in Wiley-Blackwell's Oxford office and Annette Abel for providing exemplary support to this project.

My ideas and research for this Handbook were supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada (410-2006-2424), a sabbatical grant (2008) from the York Faculty Association, and funds from the Dean of the Faculty of Health.

Last but not least, a word of thanks cannot suffice to express my feelings for my family. To Anders Sandberg, author of many books, I owe special appreciation for so many things—not the least for his humor, and for reminding me that there is more to life than editing books. My daughter Johanna and son Tor showed interest in my writing, radio and television interviews, but refrained from providing impolite comments. Thank you all for caring!

Maria Legerstee, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychology,York University, Toronto

Canada Day, July 1, 2009

Introduction

The word jealousy stems from the Latin, zelus, meaning passion, a term that aptly describes a common thread which weaves through the array of works presented in this volume. When unleashed by a competitor for a treasured relationship, jealousy can entail a level of ferocity and destruction so passionate as to have permeated some of the most ingrained features of prevailing cultural ideologies and to have inspired some of the most significant works of poetry of all time.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. (Song of Solomon 8:6)

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-eyed monster which doth mockThe meat it feeds on.

                      (William Shakespeare, Othello)

Yet, jealousy can also be recognized as a more subtle phenomenon, and one that can be interpreted in light of what may be considered its more pro-social function, as passion that drives ardor as well as goal-directed behavior that protects relationships and helps ensure survival. This side of jealousy has not inspired as much poetry, nor has it received as much investigative attention, especially in research using humans. To most people, its existence is, more or less, taken for granted. Seen as something so ubiquitous, if not inevitable, its constant presence in everyday life is almost invisible except to the exceptional poet.

Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening. (Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now)

This Handbook started with questions about the darker side of jealousy, but did not begin to take shape until the importance of jealousy's other dimensions were brought into the picture. This gave rise to our overarching goal of embracing jealousy through more nuanced and balanced treatment, and specifically through the integration of three interwoven themes that are unique to this volume.

First, our emphasis is on jealousy in its normative form. Toward this end, chapters focus on forms that occur with some regularity, and on individual differences as a function of protective influences. Descriptive material, enriched by quantitative and qualitative approaches, on behavioral, affective, and bio-physiological norms, point to constituent components, processes, and substrates. In addition to carving out an empirical basis for answering the fundamental question, What is jealousy?, these observations give rise to further premises on which to base answers to the question, Why does jealousy exist?

A second theme pertains to contexts and conditions in which jealousy arises. Our breadth is unified by attention to contexts that are social, supra-dyadic, and include at least one individual that can be construed as an interloper or competitor; but these take many different forms. Several chapters focus on variations of the classic love triangle, and involve an individual, a beloved individual with whom a valued relationship has been established, and a rival; and where the beloved is an attachment figure, a romantic partner, or a best friend. Other chapters deal with triads in which a valued relationship has not been fully established. Still others involve triads that include more than one rival or more than one valued relationship. Sometimes groupings are larger than a triad. Through varied approaches, we inquire into versions of jealousy that are widely known in different literatures as sexual/romantic jealousy, friendship jealousy, sibling rivalry, and parent–offspring conflict. We also touch on affect-laden events to which jealousy is tethered, such as social exclusion and envy. In doing so, we seek to open dialog across a number of disciplines and traditions, from anthropology to biology, with the aim of building bridges toward fresh insight.

A third and final theme pertains to development. Essentially, this issue is treated by asking: What actually changes, what doesn't, and how does change come to pass? Approaches, again, are marked by their breadth and reach. We consider patterns that are associated with differences in age and evident in phylogenesis. Others are explored via attention to samples marked by atypical affective and cognitive development. These patterns pertain to changes in goals, changes in sensitivity to different kinds of eliciting contexts, changes in the capacity to extract meaning from these contexts, and changes in affects and modes of response that are available to the individual. In line with prevailing views that change is more apparent during early development, numerous chapters in this volume focus on jealousy during infancy and childhood.

Most importantly, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Christine Cardone, Executive Editor of Psychology at Wiley-Blackwell, for her vision and enthusiasm for this project, and to Steven D. Smith for steering this project through to completion. The skill and attention to detail of Constance Adler, Annette Abel, and Hannah Rolls of Wiley-Blackwell are deeply appreciated as well. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Tiffany Field, without whose mentorship and generosity toward an unusual doctoral student a research topic as ambitious as infant jealousy would not have been attempted. I thank Jacob Gewirtz for his wise insistence on caution and discipline in the manner of interpreting findings of research, Michael Lewis for having energized an intellectual climate open to interest in jealousy, and Joseph Campos for graciously providing a forum for the topic of infant jealousy at the 2006 International Conference on Infant Studies in Kyoto. To each and every one of the outstanding contributors, I offer my deepest gratitude for joining me on a venture into a largely uncharted area of inquiry through the offering of these fine works. Gratitude is extended also to Marinus van IJzendoorn, Alan Fogel, Maria Hernandez-Reif, and Stuart Shander for their helpful feedback on the original book proposal. Numerous others gave generously. In particular, I thank Linda Camras, Edward Z. Tronick, Ronald de Sousa, Bruce Cuthbert, Judith Fischer, Kazuko Behrens, Amy Halberstadt, Malinda Colwell, and Katrina Reyes. Funding provided by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Mental Health (NIH-NIMH) and C.R. Choc and Virginia Hutcheson is deeply appreciated. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the many talented colleagues and students who worked with me over the years, and to the families and children who participated in the studies. To my own children, who gave this work both inspiration and meaning, no words can possibly express my profound gratitude.

Part I

Background

1

Jealousy in Western History

From Past toward Present

Peter N. Stearns

Jealousy has a past—that is, it has been subject to significant change over time, which means it's a proper topic for historical study. Amid change, it also displays some interesting continuities within particular cultures—a common complexity which again means it's a proper topic for historical study.

Some stark contrasts are involved. Several of the most famous American trials of the later 19th century involved men who had killed either a wife or a wife's lover, and who argued (in several cases successfully, when they also could afford a high-priced attorney) that they suffered from a legitimate jealousy that simply overcame their will. Just a half-century later (we move to the 1930s), while a number of spousal murderers may have wanted to mount this argument (think of the possibilities, even later on, for O. J. Simpson), they got nowhere with it. Jealousy—in its legitimate power to overwhelm rational controls—had been reassessed, and effective law changed accordingly. We need emotions history to understand this kind of change and, through this in turn, to assess contemporary emotional formulations in terms of a trajectory from past to present. Jealous rage is not the only facet of this particular emotion to warrant historical analysis—it's not even the most significant element in point of fact; but it does demonstrate the kind of dramatic shifts that invite entry to a historical project.

Emotions history, still a fairly new and somewhat tentative entrant, fills several needs. It helps explain why former behaviors often differed from contemporary expectations—when people defined grief, or anger, or jealousy by standards different from those of the present, it is hardly surprising that their patterns of action, even some of their basic institutions, differed as well. Emotions history, in other words, helps historians do their job of exploring the past. Emotions history can generate some good stories, providing some of the wonder that good emotions anthropology offers as to the amazing range of human responses in what might seem to be basic characteristics of the species. Above all, however, emotions history, particularly but not exclusively applied to the past century or so, illuminates current emotional responses and issues directly. By showing the immediate antecedents of a contemporary emotional pattern, there is a chance to seek causal explanations that purely presentist evidence would not permit; where significant recent change is involved, complexities may also be identified that might be difficult to discern, or certainly to account for, by using current data alone. Seeing certain emotional formulations in movement, from a prior point in time, adds a vital ingredient to emotions analysis, whether or not there is explicit interest in the past per se.1

At its best, emotions history also helps relate emotional standards and experience to wider developments in society. Examination of recent shifts in jealousy certainly requires attention to broader changes in family patterns and gender relationships. Emotional change responds to more general social currents, and adds new components to social patterns in turn. Contemporary jealousy is a revealing case in point.

Obviously, historical analysis faces some limitations, particularly around a topic as elusive as emotion. Evidence is much stronger for cultural standards than for actual emotions experiences or internal perceptions. But the standards themselves matter. They normally shape public translations of emotional expectations, as in matters of law. History here helps explore the wider consequences of emotional criteria, in social and even political areas, beyond the more individualized preoccupations of many more conventional emotions researchers. And the standards do influence personal evaluations and responses, for which there is often a certain amount of independent evidence as well.

Emotions history has value even for emotions commonly regarded as basic—that is, to some degree innate. Changes in anger standards, including concerted efforts to reduce anger at work in the United States for the past several decades, have real impact on work itself but also on personal perceptions and expressions even off the job. A history of fear, including changes in childhood socialization toward the emotion that began to take hold in the 1920s, helps explain why elements of the American public have become increasingly manipulable through political scare tactics. And the list can be expanded.2

A more composite emotion such as jealousy, however, is if anything even more open to historical conditioning. Comparative contemporary studies have already shown how jealousy-inducing situations can generate very different amalgams of anger or sadness or embarrassment, depending on particular national cultures.3 Amalgams can vary at least as much over time, which is where the opportunity to use history to explore the emotion more fully comes into play. Jealousy also has a complex, sometimes confusing relationship with envy, and history sheds light on this relationship, at least in contemporary society, as well.

The target, again, is not primarily the past for its own sake, though going back to jealousy from several centuries ago actually generates a few useful findings. The key goal involves improving contemporary self-understanding (personal and social alike), and in the process convincing other practitioners in disciplines associated with emotions study that adding a significant historical component to the interdisciplinary mix is more than a diversion, but potentially a key element in thorough analysis.

Two related comparative findings can help orient this kind of historical exploration of jealousy. Both suggest that many Americans are unusually uncomfortable with jealousy, not able always to shake it off but often forced to confront an emotion that they reprove. One response, suggested in a rich if brief comparative effort some years ago comparing polled American responses to those of Chinese, Greeks, Jamaicans, and others, is simply to conceal: Americans were more likely than many other cultures to believe that jealous feelings had to be kept secret. The other, perfectly compatible but from a slightly more recent and certainly richer comparative study, shows Americans (in contrast to the French and Dutch) particularly eager, when assailed with jealousy, to check with other people to find out if they had revealed the emotion or behaved unacceptably under its sway. These conclusions suggest an interesting jealousy issue in the United States that recent historical analysis will also highlight.4 But the historical analysis, beyond confirming, expands the field to probe the causes of this contemporary discomfort, among other things by identifying approximately when and in what circumstances it began; and it facilitates as well a wider discussion of consequences, beyond what may be revealed to zealous pollsters.

We will begin the historical discussion a bit more diffusely, toward identifying some interesting earlier ingredients and issues; but the target, ultimately, is contemporary American discomfort, and how history helps illuminate and explain it.

***

Etymology, even a basic English dictionary, quickly reveals one important aspect of jealousy: that it long had at least two basic meanings in Western culture, only one of which survives very clearly in the present day. Jealousy, in the Middle Ages or in early modern Europe, could of course mean an emotion attached to love and (implicitly at least) sex, but it could also mean an emotion spurred in defense of power or honor, a powerful motivator that could win strong approval. Jealousy, in this second sense, was directly connected with the kindred word zeal (both words derive from the same Greek stem), spurring vigor to safeguard legitimate, though not always completely tangible, assets, a goad to honorable behavior. Jealousy in this sense could support behaviors, such as dueling, seen as essential to manliness or defense of family broadly construed. Intriguingly, though not surprisingly given a more recent history in which notions of honor have yielded to other goals, from commercial success (with which too much fussing about honor might interfere) to fuller definition of individual personality, jealousy as legitimate zeal has tended to fade from view.5

For Western society, including the United States, began to pull back from privileging codes of honor by the 18th and 19th centuries. Dueling came under direct attack, and more generally public discussion began to focus on the need to restrain the kinds of emotions that would promote affronts to honor.6 A few European and, by the early 20th century, Latin American countries even established committees to regulate affronts to honor, seeking to acknowledge jealous response but quickly smother it with compromise; but this was a transitional measure that soon yielded to the assumption that any balanced individual could keep the emotions associated with honor under control on his own. Only a trickle of commentary kept alive the notion that jealousy could do any good in male–male relations. Thus one aberrant note in the American child advice literature of the 1940s argued that jealousy could have “character-building and creative uses,” the idea being not that it supported honor—now hopelessly out of date—but that it could be transformed into competitive motivation that did still fit the needs of a contemporary society. But this interesting argument was decidedly atypical in what had become, as we will shortly see, a pattern of blanket disapproval.

Traditionally, of course, ideas about jealous defense of honor could closely link to more precise discussions of the role of jealousy in love, and in male–female relationships. Here, however, the Western cultural tradition, at least by the later Middle Ages when troubadours began to heap praise on the idea of courtly love, surfaced considerable disagreement and, though inconsistently with ideals of honor, some interesting gender disparities as well. Romantic jealousy could easily be attacked because it produced cruel behaviors, adulterated real love with baser passion, and led jealous individuals to a tragic loss of control. Classically, of course, Shakespeare thus represented jealousy in Othello, describing the “venom” and “misery” of the emotion. Seventeenth-century Jesuits blasted jealousy as a “monstrous” passion, the antithesis of real, spiritual love; a jealous husband might incite his wife to sin simply in retaliation for his rantings, and the emotion could lead directly to crime.7 La Rochefoucauld saw no relationship between jealousy and real love, though he implicitly recognized that the linkage was common: “If (jealous) love is judged by its effects, it resembles hate more than friendship.”8

There was, however, another view, that jealousy was not only inevitable but actually desirable, in enhancing love. A French courtly love writer of the 12th century argued that “He who is not jealous cannot love … Real jealousy always increases the feelings of love … Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.” Jealous men could be literary heroes, defending the honor of their faithful wives. Theater fare of the 17th and 18th centuries often urged the importance of a certain amount of jealousy in flirtation, so long as it did not get out of control. Marriage advice might try, similarly, to distinguish between useful, moderate jealousy and an emotion that could drive couples apart through unfair accusations or obsession: “There is a just and an unjust jealousy. Just, is with married partners who mutually love each other; there is with them a just and prudent zeal lest their conjugal love be violated and therefore just grief if it is violated … That zeal is a just protection against adultery is plain. Hence it is as a fire flaming against violation, and defending against it.”9

All of this chatter operated as part of European high culture, sending out mixed signals of warning and acknowledgment. The mixed legacy has some significance. It shows that more contemporary concerns about jealousy as a distortion of valid emotion and a potential hazard are by no means entirely new, though this is unsurprising. The legacy also shows, however, that ideas of honor could get wrapped up in some masculine definitions of love; though this association would later encounter more uniform disapproval, it certainly could survive at least for certain personalities and in certain subcultures (some historians have pointed to a particular Southern attachment to ideas of honor, for example) even against the mainstream. Most interesting, however, before modern times, was an apparent tendency to try to resolve the contradictory signals through gender distinctions, however inconsistently with broader ideas about honor and a disproportionate emphasis on women's responsibility for sexual fidelity. An intriguing investigation into French court records in the 17th century, by historian Natalie Davis, shows that men rarely used a jealousy argument when trying to explain why they committed a disruptive act, preferring instead to claim that they were motivated by righteous anger. Women, however, though obviously less commonly involved in accusations of crime, frequently claimed that they were spurred by jealousy to attack or insult other women or assault their own husbands. Jealousy, in this rendering, was a legitimate but baser emotion, acceptable for the gender widely regarded as less capable of living up to high standards. This rendering at the popular level would also emerge in later formulas, with all its incompatibilities with residual beliefs in legitimate male defense of sexual honor.10

There is ample room for additional work on cultural traditions involving jealousy, and how they worked into popular calculations, and a pressing need for more comparative works; but a few points are already clear. Jealousy was a frequent and rather complex subject of discussion, with some deeply held but also inconsistent beliefs. The idea of jealousy as motivational, for men—an idea that would not travel well into the more modern period—struggled against the notion that this was a petty emotion more suited to women, and all within a framework in which some purists disapproved of jealousy altogether, either because it sullied the purity of love or because it could generate obsession or violence.

***

Against this backdrop, discussions of jealousy in the 19th century, at least in the United States, were surprisingly muted. This was a strange preamble to what became an unprecedentedly ardent concern in the early 20th century. Apparently—and one speculates largely in terms of what is meant by absence of evidence, rather than on the basis of elaborate data—Victorian standard-setters implicitly agreed that jealousy-fueled honor was not worth much attention because of general recognition that the goals were inappropriate; while at the same time a new and decidedly ethereal praise for true love involved far too much purity for jealousy to intrude—again, a reason for lack of much attention. Love was a frequently explored topic, but jealous entanglements did not figure into the 19th-century standards, as transmitted in family advice literature. Only on the margins did the older idea of petty female jealousy crop up in much formal discussion. Marital advice literature contained a few cautionary tales about wives who unjustifiably burdened their husbands with jealousy, though interestingly now directed at intense work interests outside the home more than against female rivals. One protagonist's happy home life was thus briefly “clouded” by jealousy, because her lawyer husband sometimes brought work home, until she realized, like a good wife, that she could share his professional ambitions so that his intensity would no longer seem to exclude her emotionally. A few stories and personal diaries evoked jealousies among adult sisters, for example when one found a match yet the other was still nervously single, confirming the femaleness but also the minor inconvenience of the emotion.11

The huge exception to this substantial neglect involved the throwback appeals to a jealousy of honor when husbands were directly confronted with wives' indiscretion and responded violently in the heat of the moment. “For jealousy is the rage of a man; therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance … Those who dishonor husbands are here warned of their doom … Jealousy, which defies and tears down all restraint, whether it be what we technically call insanity or not, is akin to it. It enslaves the injured husband, and vents itself in one result, which seems to be inevitable and unavoidable.” So argued the successful attorney for one Daniel McFarland in 1870, winning acquittal for his wealthy defendant (who had killed his wife's lover in flagrante delicato) amid the open adulation of hundreds of public well-wishers. The McFarland defense built on the pioneering argument in the Daniel Sikles trial of 1859 (another lover-killer) which had also successfully cited the “deep, ineffaceable consuming fire of jealousy.” Overall, between 1859 and the early 20th century, about 30 high-profile trials, all involving well-heeled male defendants, had invoked this defense. Intriguingly, an effort to do the same for a woman (who had killed her husband's lover) failed before a court which insisted that women could not possibly be stirred by such a deep and righteous form of jealousy.12

The argument for a few men, however, and its apparent resonance both with legal experts and a wider public, was fascinating, a seeming exception to the general disdain for, and feminization of, jealousy in the 19th century. The shift was considerable, though there was an obvious link to older anger arguments that men had used, in Western culture, to justify defense of honor or of spousal fidelity. Changes in the legal niceties of claiming insanity played a role in the change, but so did the increased currency of ideas about romantic love, which allowed new emphasis to be placed on jealousy in relationship to this emotion, rather than to more abstract concepts of honor. The link between jealousy and heightened expectation of love set the stage for ongoing discussions, spilling into the 20th century. But the association of jealousy and loss of control, even temporary insanity, also suggested drawbacks to jealousy that would soon feed a very different kind of evaluation, in which jealousy had to be seen as a deep flaw in character.

Traditional elements were obvious: the new, 19th-century courtroom use of jealousy harked back directly, though not explicitly, to older ideas about emotions legitimate in the defense of male honor. This was not, again implicitly, a petty, female type of jealousy, but an overriding emotion befitting the seriousness of the offense. Double standards, another patriarchal tradition, were fully deployed, for men had a right to emotional responses to infidelity that women did not; and in fact, for many in the middle and upper classes, the later 19th century was a double-standard heyday. But the novel note was vital as well, even aside from the heightened linkage with romantic love: jealousy's surge was equivalent to insanity in its temporary but blinding qualities. The legal reasons for the addition to standard defenses of male honor were obvious: only brief insanity would get the defendant off the hook. Yet while this was a temporarily successful line of argument, it conceded a huge amount to jealousy's downside, to the essential illegitimacy of the emotion in a reasonable society. The very success of the ploy may have contributed to a larger reassessment of jealousy which prepared, in fact, the more contemporary lines of response.

One final feature of 19th-century American society warrants attention, in explaining why comments about jealousy were so infrequent aside from the fascinating but atypical show trials. Men and women, particularly in the standard-setting middle classes, operated in rather separate spheres during the century as a whole, with respectable women confined in or around the home while men were increasingly away at work. Inter-gender contact, of the sort that might provoke adult jealousy, was fairly limited. Courtship could of course provoke conflicting emotion, but even this was a rather private, home-based activity, not springing from an abundance of public socializing among young people. And again, the fashionable statements concerning love, emphasizing pure and ethereal passion, would have been spoiled by too much admission of jealousy in any event.

The 20th century would differ from this pattern, among other things because social interactions between the genders began to change considerably. More respectable women worked outside the home, at least for a period before marriage. Co-education increasingly extended to high school and even college. Dating practices replaced home-based courtship. Even among married couples, social activities expanded and involved both spouses—the older pattern of men heading off to clubs and lodges faded in the middle class. Opportunities for jealousy arguably expanded, which is why new and more explicit commentary and cautionary advice emerged so strongly.

***

For new battle lines against jealousy were drawn in the early 20th century, far from courtrooms and nearer the cribs of young children, who had never before figured significantly in jealousy discussions of any sort. The issue, a crucial 20th-century invention, was of course sibling rivalry. From as early as 1893 (interestingly, in a revised edition of what was then the best-selling childrearing manual), advisors began to warn about the dangers of intense jealousy among young children. Parents should be aware, Felix Adler trumpeted, of the “incipient hatred” that could develop among brothers, at a very early age, which could poison the loving affection that should serve as the core of family life.13 This early salvo turned into a veritable flood of concern by the 1920s, with Children's Bureau manuals and virtually every commercial handbook addressing systematic attention to sibling rivalry. Research, at centers like Smith College, seemed to confirm the virtually inevitable onset of sibling rivalry when a toddler had to confront a newborn brother or sister. The dangers were twofold: first, an immediate physical threat to the baby, from a jealousy-wracked 3-year-old, something that parents should guard against with great vigilance. But second, the possible emotional perversion of the toddler him- or herself (gender was not a factor in this new campaign) from the poison of sibling jealousy. The verb insistently used was “festering”: if parents did not actively intervene to set the toddler on the right track, jealousy might take over permanently, distorting adult opportunities both for successful marriage and for healthy relationships at work. Parental intervention was vital, and at the same time the ubiquity of children's jealousy made this essentially a standard obligation. The message might be stated in various ways: “Children who quarrel because of jealousy are in a serious state … This type of quarreling should be treated at once by getting at and doing away with the cause of it.” Parents who let their children rival each other “may be wrecking their chance of present and future happiness.” “Unless parents recognize that jealousy will normally appear, and are prepared for it, strong feelings of hostility often develop which continue to make life miserable for both children over many years.” Even worse, according to this new and dire expertise, jealousy incompletely expressed might be worse than overt emotion: “The child whose jealousy is not as easy to recognize suffers more and has greater need for help.”14

And on it went. Popularizers in the childrearing field were at least dimly aware that they were identifying something that had not previously been highlighted, on which they could therefore assume parental ignorance and the need for external guidance. Even Dr. Spock, later on, widely and inaccurately known for his laidback reassurances to parents, would insist that “a lot of effort” was essential in curbing children's jealous emotion.15

The messages, including of course the new term itself (sibling rivalry as a formal concept dates from the 1920s), were systematically disseminated, not only in widely purchased handbooks but also from the pages of new family publications like Parents' Magazine. By the 1940s and 1950s, in turn (it takes a while for even a systematic campaign of this sort to take full hold), many parents had clearly internalized the concern, writing frequent letters about manifestations of jealousy among their own children and what they had done, or whom they had consulted, to deal with the problem. A poll in the late 1940s, focused on middle-class parents, found 53% claiming significant problems with sibling rivalry, and overall listing this as the third most pressing parental concern, and at the top of the list in terms of emotional and personality issues. We will turn momentarily to some of the wider consequences of the whole sibling rivalry scare, but it is clear that its proponents reached their immediate goal: to make the concept and the concern part of the standard arsenal of responsible parents.16

The result, correspondingly, was a major shift in the status of jealousy in American culture. The key innovations involved were obvious, even while admitting that concerns about jealousy can be found in earlier periods as well. First, jealousy was hauled out for a degree of attention it had certainly never before received in American discussions of emotion, more attention than it had usually received in any prior context. Second, it was now treated with a degree of hostility that was at least unusual if not unprecedented. This was an emotion with no merit whatsoever, indeed an emotion that carried great danger, high on the list of things to be worried about. And third, of course—and this was the most striking feature of all—it had to be encountered and handled in dealing with very young children. The attack on sibling rivalry was a key element in a new sense of parental responsibility for the explicit emotional socialization of the young, for the kind of guidance that would allow them to grow into emotionally healthy, functional adults, in turn a huge expansion of expectations attached to responsible parenthood.

The obvious question, important both historically and in terms of understanding more about the contemporary dynamics of jealousy, focuses on causation. Why did sibling rivalry become such a concern in the second quarter of the 20th century, when siblings had been around as long as the species itself with few indications of significant anxiety? Tensions between adult siblings have a historical record, from Cain and Abel onward. Diary evidence from the 19th century shows how parents occasionally grew a bit annoyed at childish bickering among siblings, but with no sense of a systematic problem and with it a focus on early childhood. The idea that jealousy among young children merited great attention was an innovation, and it begs for explanation.

Explanation, in turn, comes in three parts, granting that there is always a partially speculative element in this aspect of historical analysis, when developments that coexist in time are assigned weight in causation.

First, and most directly, a variety of psychologists began to turn more attention to children's emotions, including jealousy; the results were new at least to the extent that this kind of psychology had not existed before. Already in the later 19th century G. Stanley Hall and colleagues were conducting observations of children, and Hall was already commenting on the role of extreme adult jealousy in motivating crimes. New types of experts thought they knew things about children that had not been adequately explored before, and on this basis they thought they had an obligation to guide parents toward new responsibilities, responsibilities that had not been part of traditional parenting. The sense that scientific expertise was superior to conventional wisdom ran very strong by the early 20th century. It also turned out, of course, that persuading parents that they needed expert help was a great way to sell books and magazines and even therapy visits, which added to the motivation. The new experts (who replaced older popularizers who had relied primarily on their qualifications as moralists) obviously believed they had discovered new problems with jealousy, including its wide and early intrusion into childhood, and this became part of what they sold to the general public. The formal research into sibling rivalry, which extended initial concerns, only added to the sense of scientific discovery.

But why did parents—whose own parents had managed to do their job without knowing that sibling rivalry was a formal concept—buy into the new expertise, however fervently advocated? Clearly, something of a general pattern began to emerge in the 1920s, in which growing numbers of parents thought they needed new kinds of advice. This was a decade, not coincidentally, in which three-generational households began to decline, with grandparents maintaining separate residences more commonly than in the past; so intergenerational advice may have become either less available or seemingly less relevant. More broadly, the sense that modern life required new socialization goals may also have played a role; it was at this point, after all, that government agencies began to get into the parental guidance game, through the publications of the Children's Bureau, steadily branching out from an initial focus on purely physical health to a wider array of psychological criteria. But while factors of this sort explain a general receptivity to new and more detailed advice literature, they hardly explain the special concern about jealousy.17

This then moves us to phase two of the explanation: some very real changes in parent–child dynamics that had been emerging gradually since the later 19th century but now became inescapable. Several factors were converging for middle-class families. Use of live-in domestic servants was declining rapidly, which reduced non-parental help in dealing with young children within the household; in some cases, the new trend for older relatives to live separately added to a situation where parent–child interaction was less commonly mediated by other adults, until school age intervened. Most important, the rapid decline in birth rate reduced the availability of assistance from older children and, perhaps ironically, enhanced children's rivalry for adult affection. We know that larger clusters of siblings tend to diffuse jealousy, but this was now the pattern that was becoming exceptional.18 Siblings grouped together less (a trend also encouraged by growing emphasis on same-age contacts among children), and competed for interaction with parents more. Here is a factor impossible to prove definitively (though more historical work on the neglected topic of changes in sibling relations over time would help), but plausible and perhaps even probable nevertheless, as it builds on a number of concomitant developments of real importance. Jealousy among young children may have been singled out for new attention because in fact it was cropping up more commonly, or at the least because parents were likely to perceive it more acutely. Again, the new attention occurred within a framework where parental responsibility for emotional intervention in general was gaining new emphasis, where beliefs in the necessity of monitoring young children's emotional lives acquired new urgency because of concerns about the relationship between early impulses and later adult personalities. But there were good reasons for the role of jealousy in centering this sense of concern.19

Finally—the third layer—the focus on sibling rivalry occurred in a situation where adult jealousy itself was being reevaluated. It is possible that adult tensions encouraged some displacement onto the childish emotional arena, definite that new beliefs in the inappropriateness and danger of adult emotion in this area fostered much of the urgency about trying to create children who would grow up jealousy-free. The result was a causal circuit, in which larger warnings promoted the new signals in children's socialization, which in turn helped publicize and internalize the constraints on adults.

Changes in setting were gradual but cumulative, focusing on new public roles for women and new levels of gender contact in various settings. By the 1920s a majority of Americans could count on going to coeducational institutions for primary and secondary schooling, and a growing number also went on to coeducational colleges. The new practice of dating was gaining ground in these same schools, with considerable emphasis on the importance of “playing the field” for a while rather than forming intense attachments that might legitimately be informed by jealousy. For middle-class adolescents, for whom dating did emphasize multiple or sequential relationships rather than explicit courtship, these recommendations had real influence. At work, in the white collar sector, growing numbers of women shared office space (if often in subordinate roles). To be sure, most middle-class women did end their careers after marriage, but far more gender mixing was beginning to develop in public, as opposed to household-based, work space than had ever previously occurred. Finally, more and more middle-class couples participated in new kinds of entertainment and socializing outside the home. Observers, including perceptive social scientists like the Lynds in “Middletown” (Muncie, Indiana), noted that parties included not only mixed-company card games, and often smoking and drinking, but also frequently flirtatious exchanges of partners for part of an evening. While the new norms did not condone non-marital sex, and there is no indication that this became a more common part of middle-class marriage, the Lynds noted that by the 1930s even extramarital liaisons did not draw the heated condemnation that had once been the case in small-town America.20 Admittedly at an extreme, a spate of “modernist” marital advice began to emerge as well, that explicitly attacked jealousy for its constraints on freedom. The literature set a tone for a wider, if more moderate, commentary.21

All of these changes in middle-class circles, which brought males and females into far more relatively unsupervised contact than had been widely permitted in the 19th century, depended on more explicit constraints on jealousy than had been necessary previously. Whether this contributed to the forces promoting more rigorous emotional socialization of children, or simply built on the changes encouraged by new expertise and new parent–child dynamics within the family, cannot be definitively determined. Certainly, however, a relationship was reflected in the frequent comments, in popularized manuals, on the results of unchecked childish jealousy on adult interactions. It was no surprise, as well, that recommendations similar to those directed toward children began to show up, by the 1930s, in marital and dating advice as well, pruned of course of the specific references to sibling tensions. The new genre of magazines for teenagers (teenaged girls, particularly) repeated warnings about how the green-eyed monster could poison both reputations and relationships. By the 1950s, advice literature offered extensive warnings about the dangers of jealousy in romance. One exception, the widely hailed authority Paul Popenoe who thought the emotion was fundamental to family stability and therefore to civilization, actually proved the rule, for his efforts at insistence so clearly swam against the tide.22