{"id":75308,"date":"2024-12-24T00:26:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T05:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=75308"},"modified":"2024-12-24T00:26:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T05:26:19","slug":"are-we-moral-blank-slates-at-birth-a-new-study-offers-some-clues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/are-we-moral-blank-slates-at-birth-a-new-study-offers-some-clues\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we moral blank slates at birth? A new study offers some clues"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What does a baby know about right and wrong? A foundational finding in moral psychology suggested that even infants have a moral sense, preferring \u201chelpers\u201d over \u201chinderers\u201d before uttering their first word. Now, nearly 20 years later, a study that tried to\u00a0replicate these findings<\/a>\u00a0calls this result into question.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0original study<\/a>, Kiley Hamlin and her colleagues showed a puppet show to six- and ten-month-old babies. During the show, the babies would see a character \u2014 which was really just a shape with googly eyes \u2014 struggling to reach the top of a hill.<\/p>\n

Next, a new character would either help the struggling individual reach the top (acting as a \u201chelper\u201d) or push the character back down to the bottom of the hill (acting as a \u201chinderer\u201d).<\/p>\n

By gauging babies\u2019 behaviour \u2014 specifically, watching how their eyes moved during the show and whether they preferred to hold a specific character after the show ended \u2014 it seemed that the infants had basic moral preferences. Indeed, in the first study, 88% of the ten-month-olds \u2013 and 100% of the six-month-olds \u2013 chose to reach for the helper.
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