The Conceptual and Empirical Case for Social Evaluation in Infancy

Hamlin, J. Kiley

doi:10.1159/000365120

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Ironically, a central contention of Social Domain Theory is precisely that people base evaluations of right and wrong on considerations other than harm, rights, and fairness, such as considerations about loyalty or authority [Killen & Smetana, 2015; Turiel, 1983]. Thus, at the root of one major controversy in contemporary moral psychology are misunderstandings about what other researchers mean by the word “morality.” Similar miscommunication can also arise in the developmental literature [Dahl, 2014; Hamlin, 2014; Tafreshi, Thompson, & Racine, 2014].…”

Section: An Alternative Conceptual Starting Point For Research On Earsupporting

confidence: 59%

New Beginnings: An Interactionist and Constructivist Approach to Early Moral Development

Dahl¹

2018

Human Development

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Orientations toward harming and helping others are central to morality. These orientations undergo major transformations in early life. This paper proposes an interactionist and constructivist approach to early moral development and discusses how children construct orientations toward harming and helping through everyday social interactions. A major developmental acquisition – typically evident by age 3 – is the ability to make judgments of right and wrong based on concerns with others’ welfare. The paper concludes by outlining issues for future research on the development of morality from infancy to childhood.

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Section: An Alternative Conceptual Starting Point For Research On Earsupporting

confidence: 59%

New Beginnings: An Interactionist and Constructivist Approach to Early Moral Development

Dahl¹

2018

Human Development

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“…As soon as they begin to reach for objects (by around 5 months of age), infants already show a systematic preference for helpers over hinderers in a variety of contexts. Whether the Protagonist attempts to climb a steep hill, persistently tries to open a box to retrieve a toy, or needs assistance to have her dropped ball returned, infants systematically prefer the agent facilitating the achievement of this goal [ 4 , 7 , 8 ]. Furthermore, infants’ evaluations are specifically social: infants do not prefer characters that engage in prosocial acts with a non-social agent (e.g., a pair of pliers: [ 7 ]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing the Strength of Infants' Preference for Helpers over Hinderers: Two Replication Attempts of Hamlin and Wynn (2011)

Salvadori¹,

Blazsekova²,

Volein³

et al. 2015

PLoS ONE

119

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Several studies indicate that infants prefer individuals who act prosocially over those who act antisocially toward unrelated third parties. In the present study, we focused on a paradigm published by Kiley Hamlin and Karen Wynn in 2011. In this study, infants were habituated to a live puppet show in which a protagonist tried to open a box to retrieve a toy placed inside. The protagonist was either helped by a second puppet (the “Helper”), or hindered by a third puppet (the “Hinderer”). At test, infants were presented with the Helper and the Hinderer, and encouraged to reach for one of them. In the original study, 75% of 9-month-olds selected the Helper, arguably demonstrating a preference for prosocial over antisocial individuals. We conducted two studies with the aim of replicating this result. Each attempt was performed by a different group of experimenters. Study 1 followed the methods of the published study as faithfully as possible. Study 2 introduced slight modifications to the stimuli and the procedure following the guidelines generously provided by Kiley Hamlin and her collaborators. Yet, in our replication attempts, 9-month-olds’ preference for helpers over hinderers did not differ significantly from chance (62.5% and 50%, respectively, in Studies 1 and 2). Two types of factors could explain why our results differed from those of Hamlin and Wynn: minor methodological dissimilarities (in procedure, materials, or the population tested), or the effect size being smaller than originally assumed. We conclude that fine methodological details that are crucial to infants’ success in this task need to be identified to ensure the replicability of the original result.

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“…First, if employing live displays, researchers need to provide high quality videos of the various scenarios employed such that other research groups can potentially use them as stimuli (e.g., Hamlin, ; Scarf et al, ). Second, employing eye‐tracking technology should be the rule rather than the exception in this area of research, given that it allows a more detailed, completely objective look at scenarios that have components fitting preference, anticipation, and violation of expectation criteria (Hamlin, ; Tafreshi, Thompson, & Racine, ). Third, the field should look beyond basic preferences and investigate the role of social and cultural inputs, which may help to explain some of the variability regarding preferences for prosocial characters.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschool children and young adults' preferences and expectations for helpers and hinderers

Hinten

Labuschagne

Boden

et al. 2018

Infant and Child Development

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Several studies suggest infants and young children prefer prosocial over antisocial individuals and expect individuals will selectively approach prosocial rather than antisocial others. There is, however, confusion regarding (a) the methods used to assess preference versus those used to assess expectations and (b) the interpretation of previous studies. In the current study, utilizing eye-tracking technology, we dissect children and young adults' preferences and expectations after watching the hill paradigm, in which one character (the Helper) helps a protagonist ascend a hill whereas another character (the Hinderer) prevents the protagonist from doing so.Neither children nor young adults displayed a looking preference for the Helper over the Hinderer. With respect to expectations, children shown an animation in which the protagonist approached itsHelper looked significantly longer than children shown an animation in which it approached its Hinderer, whereas young adults' looking times were comparable across the two scenarios. We argue longer looking time to the Helper-approach animation may reflect that children expect the Helper to move in concert/coordination with the protagonist and are surprised when this does not occur. We discuss our findings in relation to arguments about boundaries between different techniques used to measure preferences versus expectations in developmental research. Highlights• We address whether clear boundaries exist between developmental paradigms that aim to test preferences, predictions, and expectations.• Eye tracking was used to collect data on children's and young adult's looking behaviour on a commonly used paradigm in social evaluation research.• We demonstrate that measures of preferences, predictions, and expectations can be extracted from a single paradigm and, therefore, that the boundaries between paradigms are far from clear cut.

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The Conceptual and Empirical Case for Social Evaluation in Infancy

Cited by 11 publications

References 37 publications

New Beginnings: An Interactionist and Constructivist Approach to Early Moral Development

New Beginnings: An Interactionist and Constructivist Approach to Early Moral Development

Probing the Strength of Infants' Preference for Helpers over Hinderers: Two Replication Attempts of Hamlin and Wynn (2011)

Preschool children and young adults' preferences and expectations for helpers and hinderers

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