Young infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others

Hamlin, J. Kiley; Wynn, Karen

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.09.001

Cited by 464 publications

(426 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Our methodology builds on previous research showing that preverbal infants distinguish between prosocial and antisocial actions directed toward third parties (3,35) and prefer prosocial over antisocial actors (4)(5)(6). Here, 5-and 8-mo-old infants saw a character (an animal hand puppet) repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to lift the lid of a clear box containing a rattle.…”

Section: Experiments Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior research, building from initial studies by Kuhlmeier et al (3), suggest that such tendencies emerge early in development. Infants in their first year of life will approach individuals who have acted positively toward others and avoid those who have acted negatively (4)(5)(6). Infants also expect others to respond in this manner-to approach those who have helped them and avoid those who have harmed them (3,4,7).…”

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confidence: 99%

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How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others

Hamlin

Wynn²,

Bloom³

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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431

341

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Although adults generally prefer helpful behaviors and those who perform them, there are situations (in particular, when the target of an action is disliked) in which overt antisocial acts are seen as appropriate, and those who perform them are viewed positively. The current studies explore the developmental origins of this capacity for selective social evaluation. We find that although 5-mo-old infants uniformly prefer individuals who act positively toward others regardless of the status of the target, 8-mo-old infants selectively prefer characters who act positively toward prosocial individuals and characters who act negatively toward antisocial individuals. Additionally, young toddlers direct positive behaviors toward prosocial others and negative behaviors toward antisocial others. These findings constitute evidence that the nuanced social judgments and actions readily observable in human adults have their foundations in early developing cognitive mechanisms.cooperation | infancy

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Section: Experiments Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others

Hamlin

Wynn²,

Bloom³

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

431

341

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Or do infants reason from an early age about the actions of non-human agents? The available evidence supports the latter possibility: positive results have been obtained using non-human agents (e.g., boxes and geometric shapes) with infants as young as 3-6 months (a) in detour, preference, and other psychological-reasoning tasks (e.g., Csibra 2008;Luo 2011b;Schlottmann & Ray 2010) and (b) in sociomoral-reasoning tasks (e.g., Hamlin et al 2007Hamlin et al , 2010Hamlin & Wynn 2011). These findings naturally raise the question of how infants identify novel non-human entities as agents.…”

Section: Identifying Agentsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…By their first birthday, infants can infer a variety of goals including: inspecting, reaching, obtaining, or displacing an object; comforting, helping, hindering, chasing, or hitting an agent; and giving a toy to an agent or stealing a toy from an agent Hamlin & Wynn 2011;Johnson et al 2007aJohnson et al , 2010Király et al 2003;Kuhlmeier et al 2003;Luo & Baillargeon 2005a;Premack & Premack, 1997;Woodward 1998). Moreover, infants understand not only single goal-directed actions, but also more complex means-end action sequences.…”

Section: Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological Reasoning in Infancy

Baillargeon

Scott

Bian

2016

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

208

152

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Adults routinely make sense of others' actions by inferring the mental states that underlie these actions. Over the past two decades, developmental researchers have made significant advances in understanding the origins of this ability in infancy. This evidence indicates that when infants observe an agent act in a simple scene, they infer the agent's mental states and then use these mental states, together with a principle of rationality (and its corollaries of efficiency and consistency), to predict and interpret the agent's subsequent actions and to guide their own actions toward the agent. In this review, we first describe the initial demonstrations of infants' sensitivity to the efficiency and consistency principles. We then examine how infants identify novel entities as agents. Next, we summarize what is known about infants' ability to reason about agents' motivational, epistemic, and counterfactual states. Finally, we consider alternative interpretations of these findings and discuss the current controversy about the relation between implicit and explicit psychological reasoning.

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“…Indeed, even early in the very first year, infants distinguish prosocial from antisocial characters and prefer to touch prosocial characters (Hamlin & Wynn 2011, Hamlin et al 2007, Kuhlmeier et al 2003. These preferences soon become evident in children's prosocial behaviors.…”

Section: Toddlers' Second-personal Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality

Tomasello

Vaish

2013

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

618

404

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From an evolutionary perspective, morality is a form of cooperation. Cooperation requires individuals either to suppress their own selfinterest or to equate it with that of others. We review recent research on the origins of human morality, both phylogenetic (research with apes) and ontogenetic (research with children). For both time frames we propose a two-step sequence: first a second-personal morality in which individuals are sympathetic or fair to particular others, and second an agent-neutral morality in which individuals follow and enforce group-wide social norms. Human morality arose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives for cooperating with others, and the ontogeny of these skills and motives unfolds in part naturally and in part as a result of sociocultural contexts and interactions.

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Young infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others

Cited by 464 publications

References 26 publications

How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others

How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others

Psychological Reasoning in Infancy

Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality

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