Although developmental psychologists traditionally explore morality from a learning and development perspective, some aspects of the human moral sense may be built-in, having evolved to sustain ...collective action and cooperation as required for successful group living. In this article, I review a recent body of research with infants and toddlers, demonstrating surprisingly sophisticated and flexible moral behavior and evaluation in a preverbal population whose opportunity for moral learning is limited at best. Although this work itself is in its infancy, it supports theoretical claims that human morality is a core aspect of human nature.
Previous research has shown that 6‐month‐olds evaluate others on the basis of their social behaviors – they are attracted to prosocial individuals, and avoid antisocial individuals (Hamlin, Wynn & ...Bloom, 2007). The current studies investigate these capacities prior to 6 months of age. Results from two experiments indicate that even 3‐month‐old infants evaluate others based on their social behavior towards third parties, and that negative social information is developmentally privileged.
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.
The capacity to evaluate other people is essential for navigating the social world. Humans must be able to assess the actions and intentions of the people around them, and make accurate decisions ...about who is friend and who is foe, who is an appropriate social partner and who is not. Indeed, all social animals benefit from the capacity to identify individual conspecifics that may help them, and to distinguish these individuals from others that may harm them. Human adults evaluate people rapidly and automatically on the basis of both behaviour and physical features, but the ontogenetic origins and development of this capacity are not well understood. Here we show that 6- and 10-month-old infants take into account an individual's actions towards others in evaluating that individual as appealing or aversive: infants prefer an individual who helps another to one who hinders another, prefer a helping individual to a neutral individual, and prefer a neutral individual to a hindering individual. These findings constitute evidence that preverbal infants assess individuals on the basis of their behaviour towards others. This capacity may serve as the foundation for moral thought and action, and its early developmental emergence supports the view that social evaluation is a biological adaptation.
•Examined preverbal infants’ ability to incorporate intentionality into their social evaluations.•View characters try, but fail, to help or to hinder a third party from reaching its ...goal.•8-month-olds privilege intention over outcome in their evaluations.•Neither 5- nor 8-month-olds solely utilize outcome in their evaluations.•Suggests mentalistic social evaluations occur during the first year of life.
Mature moral judgments include an analysis of both the outcomes of others’ actions as well as the mental states that drive them. While adults easily incorporate both intention and outcome into their moral evaluations, scores of developmental studies suggest that it may be uniquely difficult for young children to privilege intention in their judgments of right and wrong (e.g., Piaget, 1932/1965), leading to the conclusion that the ‘moral mind’ of the young child is fundamentally different from that of older children and adults. The current studies utilize a puppet-choice methodology shown to provoke reliable social preferences throughout the first year after birth (e.g., Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007), and provide evidence that 8-month-old infants incorporate, and even privilege, intentions in their social evaluations. In contrast, 5-month-olds appear only able to distinguish characters who intend the outcomes they cause. Such results suggest that one requirement for mature moral judgments, the ability to distinguish between intentions and outcomes in morally relevant events, is present by 8months of age.
Humans are extraordinarily prosocial, and research conducted primarily in North America indicates that giving to others is emotionally rewarding. To examine whether the hedonic benefits of giving ...represent a universal feature of human behavior, we extended upon previous cross-cultural examinations by investigating whether inhabitants of a small-scale, rural, and isolated village in Vanuatu, where villagers have little influence from urban, Western culture, survive on subsistence farming without electricity, and have minimal formal education, report or display emotional rewards from engaging in prosocial (vs. personally beneficial) behavior. In Study 1, adults were randomly assigned to purchase candy for either themselves or others and then reported their positive affect. Consistent with previous research, adults purchasing goods for others reported greater positive emotion than adults receiving resources for themselves. In Study 2, 2- to 5-year-old children received candy and were subsequently asked to engage in costly giving (sharing their own candy with a puppet) and non-costly giving (sharing the experimenter's candy with a puppet). Emotional expressions were video-recorded during the experiment and later coded for happiness. Consistent with previous research conducted in Canada, children displayed more happiness when giving treats away than when receiving treats themselves. Moreover, the emotional rewards of giving were largest when children engaged in costly (vs. non-costly) giving. Taken together, these findings indicate that the emotional rewards of giving are detectable in people living in diverse societies and support the possibility that the hedonic benefits of generosity are universal.
The current study replicates and extends the finding (
Hamlin, Wynn & Bloom, 2007) that infants prefer individuals who act prosocially toward unrelated third parties over those who act antisocially. ...Using different stimuli from those used by
Hamlin et al. (2007), somewhat younger subjects, and 2 additional social scenarios, we replicated the findings that (a) infants prefer those who behave prosocially versus antisocially, and (b) these preferences are based on the social nature of the actions. The generality of infants’ responses across multiple examples of prosocial and antisocial actions supports the claim that social evaluation is fundamental to perceiving the world.
Evolutionary models of cooperation require proximate mechanisms that sustain prosociality despite inherent costs to individuals. The "warm glow" that often follows prosocial acts could provide one ...such mechanism; if so, these emotional benefits may be observable very early in development. Consistent with this hypothesis, the present study finds that before the age of two, toddlers exhibit greater happiness when giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves. Further, children are happier after engaging in costly giving--forfeiting their own resources--than when giving the same treat at no cost. By documenting the emotionally rewarding properties of costly prosocial behavior among toddlers, this research provides initial support for the claim that experiencing positive emotions when giving to others is a proximate mechanism for human cooperation.
Evaluating individuals based on their pro‐ and anti‐social behaviors is fundamental to successful human interaction. Recent research suggests that even preverbal infants engage in social evaluation; ...however, it remains an open question whether infants’ judgments are driven uniquely by an analysis of the mental states that motivate others’ helpful and unhelpful actions, or whether non‐mentalistic inferences are at play. Here we present evidence from 10‐month‐olds, motivated and supported by a Bayesian computational model, for mentalistic social evaluation in the first year of life.A video of this article can be viewed at http://youtu.be/rD_Ry5oqCYE
Evaluating individuals based on their pro‐ and anti‐social behaviors is fundamental to successful human interaction. Recent research suggests that even preverbal infants engage in social evaluation; however, it remains an open question whether infants’ judgments are driven uniquely by an analysis of the mental states that motivate others’ helpful and unhelpful actions, or whether non‐mentalistic inferences are at play. Here we present evidence from 10‐month‐olds, motivated and supported by a Bayesian computational model, for mentalistic social evaluation in the first year of life.
Spelke's
What babies know
describes the remarkably sophisticated mental lives of infants through the theoretical framework of core knowledge. To Spelke, young infants possess six independent core ...domains, two of which allow them to reason about the social world: the core agent and the core social being systems. Critically, Spelke argues that these core systems fail to communicate prior to 10 months, resulting in an inability to understand social goals. In this commentary, I review evidence that, contrary to Spelke's claims, young infants show robust understanding of social goals and intentions, consistent with claims of an early emerging moral core.
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