The Nature of Things: Babies: Born to Be Good

The Nature of Things: Babies: Born to be Good? endeavour, every aspect of day to day interaction. And if we want to see where our Where does our moral compass come from? moral instinct comes from studying babies gives Where do our notions of good and bad, our us insight into human nature before it gets sense of justice and fairness originate? Do we tainted & corrupted by culture. come into the world as amoral creatures without any sense of right and wrong, without Research on Infant Morality any conscience and only learn to be good? The latest studies on the minds of infants reveal In laboratories around the world psychologists new information about how humans shape their are grappling with the age-old problem of moral views – and this research is being done by morality. And strange as it may seem, they are Canadians. posing these large philosophical questions to Studies by a group of Canadian-born or based babies. As the answers emerge, the findings psychologists have provided the first evidence about babies’ moral notions tell us much about that babies are hardwired with an innate sense human nature. of good and bad. The last 30 years have brought about a A 2007 study by Yale University’s Paul Bloom of revolution in our understanding of babies. New Montreal and Karen Wynn of Regina, as well as techniques have allowed psychologists to J. Kiley Hamlin from the University of British decipher what babies think and they’ve Columbia, shows that six- and ten-month old discovered more and more about the babies can assess individuals based on their complexity of what is going on in even the behaviour towards others. The trio presented youngest baby’s mind. The results of their babies with scenes involving shapes that research are startling. The evidence suggests represented both “helper” and “hinderer” that there are glimmers of moral thought, moral characters. When asked to point at or touch the judgment and moral feeling even in the first character they liked best, in an overwhelming year of a baby’s life. number of scenarios, the babies almost always And so we witness 3-month olds demonstrating chose the “good guy.” preference for “good guys” over “bad guys”. In 2010, Bloom’s research also proved that We see 6 month-olds proving they understand babies as young as three months old can make concepts of reward and punishment. And 9- moral judgements about right and wrong. The month-olds -- justice and fairness? next year, Hamlin published another study that We look at the influence of culture on lying and suggests babies as young as eight months old truthfulness,-- (and what is an acceptable white embrace the punishment of “bad” characters. lie) -- as children try to navigate the fine line Although volumes of work have been done on between the two, learning how to solve one of babies’ cognitive development and even their the big moral questions that adults face understanding of other higher-order processes, everyday. such as empathy, it’s hard to find any previous Morality is absolutely fundamental to our life, it studies on the moral life of infants. Hamlin says covers just about every span of human she’s not surprised. “The reason you can’t find any work on this rewards or gifts. Baillergeon and her team found before our paper is because there just wasn’t that babies spent more time focusing on the any,” Hamlin said. “The assumption was that scenes in which “slacker” characters were there was no way that babies did any of this rewarded more or the same number of treats stuff.” than the “hard-working” puppets.

Hamlin adds that psychologists were satisfied “These studies, like earlier studies, show that with the more common belief that a baby’s children have expectations that individuals will mind was a tabula rasa or a blank slate, waiting distribute resources and rewards fairly,” to learn the difference between right and Baillargeon said. “It could affect the way we wrong, at about three to ten years of age. teach what is appropriate behaviour.”

Jean Piaget is most famous for his research Jennifer Jenkins, the Atkinson Chair of early child during the 1920s, but the Swiss psychologist development and education at the University of drew his theories on moral development from Toronto, has also done research in young young children, not preverbal infants. Piaget, children and what influences their early like Sigmund Freud and Lawrence Kohlberg, development. She says that although babies are believed that children were born as amoral born with a multitude of expectancies, they are agents and eventually form their own moral constantly taking in information, even before reasoning through socialization. But over the birth. last thirty years, scientists have overturned this view. “I think children are learning from their environment when they are in utero,” Jenkins In the 1970s and ‘80s psychologists started to said, “and as they come out, they are also make use of babies’ eye movements as an learning from their environment – all of those experimental tool. “Looking time” – the theory are experiences that children learn from.” that babies tend to linger on what captures their attention – helped psychologists like Elizabeth Jenkins emphasizes that this breakthrough Spelke and Renee Baillargeon understand a research shows it’s possible to delve into the baby’s “naive physics.” Their experiments minds of infants younger than we thought involved showing babies magic tricks, such as possible, which can help adults understand how floating boxes and disappearing objects. They to interact with young children. determined that babies have expectations about “What’s happening in the research is that the behaviour of objects, especially when they people are showing that children are making violate laws of the universe. these discriminations earlier and earlier,” she Then Baillargeon, Stephanie Sloane and David said. “What that tells us is that the environment Premack took their queries a step further earlier is important from very early on in children’s this year. If infants have expectations of the lives, so it makes a difference what we’re doing behaviour of objects, they must have some kind in child care settings and in families.” of innate, general understanding of fairness, the In other areas of cognitive development, psychologists hypothesized. In their scientists have studied the minds of infants experiments, they engaged 19 to 21-month-old younger than three months old. This research, children in scenarios in which puppets earned Hamlin says, is ‘easier’ to design and conduct When we try to instil kindness, are we nurturing than those involving moral cognition, but she impulse? It helps to know what our natural believes they have yet to reach the frontiers of biases are.” studying innate knowledge. Meet the Experts “My tests necessarily involve watching an PAUL BLOOM is a professor of psychology at interaction unfold over time, and newborns are Yale University. His research explores how notoriously poor lookers and visual-attenders. children and adults understand the physical and So I am not sure how much younger we will be social world, with special focus on morality, able to go with the kinds of morality play studies religion, fiction, and art. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He is past- that I do. president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and co-editor of Behavioral and “That said, I definitely do not believe, in general, Brain Sciences, one of the major journals in the that three months is the youngest we can study field. innate knowledge,” Hamlin added. “Additional Professor Bloom has written for scientific methodologies are coming around every day, journals such as Nature and Science, and for especially with the use of infant EEG popular outlets such as The New York Times, the (electroencephalogram) and NIRS (near-infrared Guardian, and the Atlantic. He is the author or spectroscopy), which allow us to probe the brain editor of four books, including How Children activity of even newborn brains, or even Learn the Meanings of Words, and Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development prenatal brains.” Explains What Makes Us Human.

However, Hamlin and her peers, including ALISON GOPNIK is a professor of Psychology Bloom, acknowledge that the morality babies and philosophy at the University of California at start off with is primitive and limited, and is not Berkeley. She received her BA from McGill University and her Phd. from Oxford. She is an complete without cultural influence. internationally recognized leader in the study of children’s learning and development and was “ The aspect of morality that we truly marvel at – the first to argue the children’s minds could help its generality and universality – is the product of us understand deep philosophical questions. She culture, not biology. There is no need to posit is the author of over 100 journals and books divine intervention,” he said. “A fully developed including The Philosophical Baby: What children’s minds tell us about love, truth and the morality is the product of cultural meaning of life. development.” J. KILEY HAMLIN is an Assistant Professor of Bloom adds that studying moral development is Psychology at the University of British Columbia. not just about feeding the fascination people Her work with babies focuses on how they have with how a baby’s mind works. He says evaluate the behavior of others in everyday life. In particular, she looks at children’s tendency to there are larger social implications that can be judge actions as good or bad, as deserving of drawn from these studies. reward or punishment, and as morally praiseworthy or blameworthy. She studies “It helps to know how the mind works,” Bloom whether children’s moral evaluation of the said. “Take the example of prejudice. If we want behavior of others enables them to predict how someone might behave in the future. She has to eradicate prejudice, it’s important to ask designed studies which illicit information from questions like ‘are we naturally prejudiced?' infants who can’t yet speak in the hope that she will uncover foundational origins of these methods to investigate how children come to processes before complex cognitive abilities grips with the concept and moral implication of (such as language and inhibitory control) fully lying, whether children are gullible or they are develop, and prior to the influences of cultural able to detect others' lies, and whether children norms and values. can tell convincing lies in various social situations. He also examines the cognitive- FELIX WARNEKEN is an Assistant Professor of social-cultural factors that affect children's Psychology at Harvard University. His work acquisition of conceptual and moral knowledge explores children’s understanding of social about lying and their ability to detect/tell lies situations with a special focus on the evolution successfully. of cooperation. One striking finding of this research is that even very young children CHRIS MOORE is a Professor of Psychology at spontaneously engage in various forms of Dalhousie University. Professor Moore is altruistic behaviors such as helping others with interested the development of fairness which he their problems or sharing resources with them. believes to be very fundamentally related to These findings he says show that human infants morality because morality is about treating have a biologically based predisposition for everybody equally in a sense. He is trying to altruism. This work is complemented by determine when it is the babies and children collaborative projects examining our closest start to appreciate the idea of sharing things living primate relatives, the great apes. Studying equally. What is interesting about kids is that the great apes is important to his work because they will use the words “fair” “no fair” a lot, but it enables us to disentangle those aspects of it is typically used when they see someone else human behaviors that are unique to humans has got more than they do. They won’t typically from those aspects that have deeper say ‘that’s not fair” if they have more than the evolutionary roots. other person. So there are these early asymmetries. And we are interested in how the VALERIE KUHLMEIER is an Associate Professor notion of fairness becomes consolidated. of Psychology at Queen's University. She studies infants’ ability to interpret the behavior and mental states of others and to respond with “pro-social” or helping behavior. One very interesting question she and her colleagues ask is: do infants and toddlers display helping behavior in general or do they help others selectively and how do they decide who is worthy of help? She has found that kids, given the choice were more likely to help the people who had helped them and as well to help those who had tried and failed to help them. What this means is “It’s the thought that counts”. Which Kuhlmeier says is “kind of sweet “– that kids were considering the intentions of others at such a young age. So that even if you tried but failed to help them, that is better than if you didn’t help them at all. The outcome is the same – the toddler didn’t get helped - but when the intention to help is there, very small children take this into account.

KANG LEE is a Professor at the Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto. The first focus of Professor Lee’s research is on the development of lying in young children. He uses experimental