Jealousy in infant-peer trios: From narcissism to culture

The first sections of this chapter rework the dyadic framework of infancy research in terms of a theory of 'thirdness', the capacity for relating as a 'third party' to relationships between two (or more) others, a capacity which is argued by some cultural theorists to underpin humans' accession to culture. We will then be in a position to examine the recent surge of research on 'triadic interaction', to assess its implications for conceptualising the early stages of human enculturation. Central to my discussion is previously-published empirical case-based research on infants in groups, in particular, all-infant trios (Selby & Bradley, 2003a; 2003b; Bradley & Selby, 2004).