Babies spurn antisocial behaviour
29 November 2011
Babies as young as 8 months like to see bad behaviour punished, new research suggests.
After experimenting with scenarios using hand puppets, psychology researchers found that 8-month-old babies not only liked puppets that performed kind acts, but also endorsed negative behaviour directed at puppets acting antisocially (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online 28 Nov 2011).
And, they disapproved of characters who were nice to the antisocial puppets.
Babies aged only 5 months uniformly preferred the characters who acted positively towards others, regardless of whether the recipient of the kindness had previously been 'good' or 'bad'.
The North American researchers presented 4 scenarios to 100 babies using animal hand puppets. After watching the puppets behaving positively or negatively towards others, babies were then shown puppets giving or taking away toys from the 'good' or 'bad' puppets.
When asked to choose their favourite characters, the 8-month-olds chose puppets that mistreated the bad puppets from the original scene.
The researchers said the study had shown that by 8 months babies were capable of evaluating social behaviour that goes beyond 'prosocial means good' and 'antisocial means bad'.
"They positively view not only those who behave positively towards prosocial individuals, but also those who mete out negative treatment to antisocial individuals," they commented.
A further evaluation of toddlers aged 21 months found they were happy to reward with treats the puppets who were good, and happy to take away treats from the puppets who had behaved poorly.
Last Reviewed: 02 December 2011
- 1. Hamlin JK, Wynn K, Bloom P, Mahajan N. How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2011 Nov 28. [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1110306108. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/11/21/1110306108 (accessed Dec 2011).
