Babies Can Tell Good People from Bad

Babies as young as six months can distinguish between good and bad people and can also observe characters being helpful or unhelpful.

Scientists had thought that social judgments developed with language at about 18 months to two years old.

But the results suggest the ability to make moral judgments has innate foundations and is not just learned from parents. Here we have one component what a sophisticated system of moral judgment requires.

A team from Yale University in Connecticut studied reactions of six and 10-month-old babies to scenarios involving a climber trying to scale a hill. The character – circular blob with eyes – was helped or hindered by two different shaped blobs.

The triangle helped push the climber up while an unhelpful square blocked the climber’s ascent.

The babies were offered the choice of holding the triangle or the square. Fourteen of the 16 10-month-olds and all 12 of the six-month-olds chose the triangle.

An innate sense of who plays by the social rules and who does not would be great evolutionary advantage and important for the development of human sociality.

But it was surprising that such young babies could make those judgments.

Technorati Tags: Misc Topics

Vote Result

Score: 7.0, Votes: 1