ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how an infant starts to know the Other and how "normal" prejudice develops. The Other now has societal implications: it is a large group of beings who do not belong to the child's sense of "we-ness". From a theoretical point of view, states that the preparation for the concept of the Other for an individual begins to emerge while the infant experiences attachment to mother and specific persons, a process that will take about three years to stabilize. At eight months of life, the baby fears the stranger/Other who, in reality, has done nothing harmful to them. A normal phenomenon in human development, stranger anxiety is a response to the stranger/Other in the infant's mind and becomes the foundation for the evolution of future "normal" prejudice. Other psychoanalysts have also considered oedipal factors in the establishment of large-group identity. Such postulations are supported by references to the Other in many ancient documents and languages.
