Abstract

Affective bonding, social attention, and intersubjective capabilities are all conditions for jealousy, and are
deficient in autism. Thus, examining jealousy and attachment may elucidate the socioemotional deficit in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Jealousy was provoked in 30 high-functioning children with ASD (HFASD) and 30 typical children (ages 3–6 years) through two triadic social (storybook-reading) scenarios – mother-child-rival and stranger-child-rival. A control nonsocial scenario included mother/stranger-book. For both groups, higher jealousy expressions emerged for mother than stranger, and for social than nonsocial scenarios. Attachment security (using Attachment Q-Set) was lower for HFASD than typical groups, but attachment correlated negatively with jealous verbalizations for both groups and with jealous eye gazes for HFASD. Implications for understanding jealousy’s developmental complexity and the socioemotional deficit in
ASD are discussed.

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 253-264.