The older kids that appeared to be more altruistic could’ve known that they were being tested and wanted to come across as selfless instead of selfish. So maybe as they got older they just became better manipulators because they know that selfish behavior is seen as unacceptable. Or maybe they legitimately were empathetic.
This is true. It's difficult to tell whether they were just being manipulative. It tells me that learning social norms and courteousness might just be another expression of self interest; that our true motivation is the plaudits we hope to receive for being altruistic. The presenter does mention that once pressured or stressed, we revert back to a state that our innate bias dictates.
Azay Deelay yeah because at ten years old you wouldn’t be able to tell how obvious that test was? It would be pretty simple for them to see that they were being tested, and they chose the ‘kinder’ option because they thought that is what they were supposed to pick. Even though the examiners didn’t tell them what they were up to it wouldn’t be hard for a kid at that age to understand what was going on.
"Ball thief". How do babies know who owns the ball? 4:41. Maybe they just saw the other puppet refusing to share the ball as bad behavior. There is a difference between theft and bad behavior. Also, will they show biases if they see the 'thieves' behaving nicely earlier?
Do you mean they should use a bunny rabbit stuffed animal instead of one that is a kitten? Because they are showing the stuffed animals doing good and bad things.
@@Germatti13489 ? what? The original commenter was *perfectly* clear in their idea. Now. What are *you* trying to talk about? 🥴🤯 Are you a drooling blob or what?
Theyve done that already. Only, I forgot how it goes. I guess they mostly choose good. Or think it's funny. I cycle the same thoughts throughout my yrs.
@miele I never said that recognizing bad acts makes you bad. Recognizing good acts as good is a feature of being good, and so is recognizing bad acts as bad. Manipulators giving "good" answers isn't the same thing as genuinely doing good acts. Would you say that manipulators recognize their act of manipulating as bad?
My opinion, Babies are pure heart but that doesn't mean the baby is good nor bad they just neutral it how people teach them or the how the environment shape them.
@@OlivePapyrus the only difference between the rat/pigeon babies and human babies is that the human babies are way less likely to be eaten alive. The rest is the same haha
Do “they become more generous” or do they become more self-conscious and concerned with the opinions of other. Younger children are notoriously the most honest humans.
I mean, when I was that young I never felt self conscious, I had the urge to be nice to people and generous. Self image issues came after puberty. Personal experience, but others might agree.
This doesn’t prove anything “moral” but self-preserving tendency. They like nice behaviour because it guarantees them pleasure or less suffering. Let’s see who chooses morality if it comes with suffering.
Well to be fair humans have been known to commit moral acts even if it may cause suffering to themselves we are at our most basic construct very kind and social creatures.
Can the baby's preference to use their right or left hand has anything to do with which stuffed animal to grab when given the choice? Did this study address this?
Did you hear the percentages? 75% and 81% are way too significant to attribute to dominant handedness, especially when the placement of the puppets was randomized
If the study is not conducted by morons, factors like these are excluded by randomizing the position of the bunnies. Other factors like the color that the bunnies wear or (subtle) hints by adults should also be excluded.
Plus the "good" puppet was basically handed to them, whereas the "bad" one was held to the side. Either it was a chance accident, or the study assistant knew which one was which.
In the studies where they were testing bias, many of the babies chose the bad puppets on their left. Unless the first babies shown were all right handed and in the second study they were left handed, I don't think handedness has much to do with it. I do agree that the study had other flaws.
Unless, like the video showed, it could be the babies prefer that puppet because of a bias. Time Stamp 7:28 - 8:11 We saw the "other" puppet get punished and the "bad" puppet (who punished it) got chosen by the babies even though the "good" puppet helped the "other" puppet.
I gotta say- this BLEW my mind. I'm sure there's some confusing biases, and it wouldn't hurt to try this with babies from across the globe, but this... This changed by views on a lot of things.
It honestly makes sense because it would not be in the baby’s best interest to like mean people. Mean people would mean not getting fed, not getting taken care of, not loved, etc.
Or they pick the one closest to them, or being more offered? The adult is speaking in a more soft voice, or the kid likes looking in that direction, or likes the shirt color more.
I have a blobby blobby blobby bloob of cuteness. She's my sugar plum, pumpy pumpy yumkins, she's my sweetie pie. & I love to sing sweet songs to her, she's the apple of my eye 🎵 . I'm sure I butchered that but oh well
Never mind babies. I will tell you what I observed with a litter of kittens. There were three of them. A super-Macho male called MacGregor, a playful intelligent female called Mi Mi, and a woosey, wimpish greedy fur-ball called Burberry. MacGreggor and Mi-Mi were game for anything, They ran out into the yard and wrestled in the sunshine. Burberry didn't like the yard. He didn't really like the kitchen tiles either, because they were cold under his poor little feet. They were three kittens of the same litter, but their personalities were entirely different. And here is the big difference. When they shared a bowl of food, MacGreggor would happily let Burberry eat twice his share. But Mi-Mi would put one paw firmly in the middle of Burberry's forehead and push him away, snarling at him with her mouth full. And when they wrestled, if Burberry cried, which he did, because he was such a sook, sweet MacGreggor would immediately play more gently. But if Burberry cried when he ws wrestling with Mi-Mi, the effect on Mi-Mi was exactly the opposite. She would grab him, pummel him furiously in the belly with her back legs, and bite his ears as hard as she could. The more Burberry cried, the better she enjoyed it. Eventually their Mother would come to the rescue, grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him up the stairs, with him squawking loudly all the way as his fat body hit each stair. My observation was that one of these kitten siblings had real empathy, and the other had none whatsoever. Children, in my experience, are just as variable.
@@alexvano9718 there was a black child, an asian child, and one of the older kids was brown (maybe latina). Just cuz they showed mostly white babies does not mean they only tested white babies. They only showed the babies whose parents allowed their kids to be shown on tv... y'all need to stop immediately assuming things
As I watched, I wondered if they randomized the color and patterns of the clothes on the toys, along with the color of the toy itself. Without knowing specifically which variables were addressed, all in all, I thought it was a brilliant start. Their results will need to be confirmed by a separate study group.
Agreed. It's interesting to note that the "good" puppet had a brighter colored shirt than the bad puppet, and the cats especially could have easily been biased because babies like bright colors. Grey vs bright orange seems pretty obvious in hindsight for a child
I wondered the same thing - what if babies like warm colours (ginger / orange brown vs grey)? But fascinating yes. Looking into parental attitudes and different cultures would also be interesting, since even from an early age babies probably absorb a lot more social information than we would think - affectionate vs nasty behaviour etc
I think the morality of a baby might derive from basic human instincts that come predisposed to them. Changing or becoming more complex as they age in their surrounding environment. There’s a good chance the reason why the babies liked the good dog more was because mirror neurons fired in the brains when seeing the bad dogs, making the babies self-reflect and putting themselves, at least to a very basic level, in the perspective of the victim puppet. Therefore preferring the good puppet and seeing it as an instinctual ally of some sort.
@@JSmusiqalthinka It all comes down to the need to achieve balance between the two. Like anything our natural instincts only become a problem when they're extreme. Nothing wrong with a sense of belonging.
i met a bab who was bor almost a year after my friend died. i was still depressed a year and a half later and this baby girl saw that i was crying and she wipes the tears away and smiles at me i never would have thought babies would sense these kinds of things then a year later i was having kidney and abdominal pain that brought me to the floor in pain and this same baby comes up to me and hugs me. she knew i was sick how i do not know. how does a 1 year old know when something is going wrong and know how to comfort someone?
Babies are sensitive to facial expressions, they can sense when something is wrong through it. It's one of their primal source of communication to others.
Babies exist closer to Heaven, my 2& 1/2 year old niece, when asked what it was like in Heaven, said it was getting hard to remember. She smiled a little and looked very serious.
I've been attending a lot of playgroups when my child was a baby and man, some babies themselves are really mean while others are kind and gentle. It's just so very obvious from early stages in life, it's kind of disturbing :D
***** Very good question~ maybe they should switch up the color to more neutral ones and put patterns instead. like star and smiley face patterned, and heart patterned or something. just something to get rid of color.
Yeah, I think this test is very one dimensional... the 20%, that have not chosen the evil one, have totally been dismissed. But for me, those would be the really interesting ones...
The man who did this research is brilliant. The reason why older kids tried to give more to others is because they are smart enough to make them look nice to others and also because they know those coins are valueless. But if it was something valuable adults will start fighting all over again like babies.
Well... I think my baby knows she's gotta hold a bottle to feed herself. She just hasn't quite mastered the holding part yet. ,,,Other than that, she's a baby. She knows everyone's on call... I think she just tried to mimick my laugh too. Also, she favors me so 😋..
I tried this with my baby. So when the mean bear was Bullying the middle puppet, she laughed a lot. But at the end she chose the nice bear every time I showed the 2 bears
watching this for hw, I honestly think theres too many factors on the first experiment. For one, maybe the child wanted to see what was in the box, so he chose the animal that helped the creature open the box over the creature that shut the box.
As the mother of 2 grown children, and a former nanny... I can tell you that babies are born with with a deep deep sense of selfcenteredness....the dark side of humanity.
Well I think that makes sense for babies they are at that age which they are at the most vulnerable and want parents attention and need parents attention all the time. I doubt they do it because they are being mean but rather because it’s in their nature to survive. To them their whole world is themselves and parents and that’s about it, they are too young to start prioritizing others over themselves or “looking out” for others.
It is not necessarily dark, if they can't survive how they can look out for others? They are entirely dependent on caregivers and the outside world in general.
I think some kids are born happy and confident, some are born insecure, so in my opinion with encouragement from loving parents hopefully the happy thrive and the insecure are given love and encouragement. Sometimes no amount of verbal and physical reassurance from loving parents stop insecurities but hopefully limit how far down one can go.
The cereal on should have had two of the same color cats with two different and very neutral colored shirts on. The babies could be picking the orange cat because it’s visually appealing. Just saying.
There could be some bias of the color of toy's t shirt or the hand in which the researcher is carrying it(baby could choose toy to his right or left always). Just to make sure other factors aren't working on baby's decision same experiment should be conducted multiple times on same baby with different environment every time.
I'm not so sure these tests are actually proving the WHY of the choice made. I was in a room of baby dolls and asked to choose the one I liked. The dolls were different sizes and had different features like some could talk or be fed. I chose the small, plain doll with no special features, because I felt that no one would choose it. I simply felt empathy for that doll.
It's not just babies though. They did a similar study with rats where the rats were given the choice between saving another rat and then both getting a treat or just getting a treat. Almost every time if the rat in the cage was similar color to the rats he had met previously and had good experiences with then he'd save the rat first. If the other rat was a new color of rat he'd never seen, he was more likely to just get the treat! So it's not just babies but some animals do this kind of thing too!
This was a fascinating video. It would be interesting to see more scientific research done in order to test the validity of their views. It seems that we should objectively evaluate the experiment and it's methods before we condemn it or blindly accept it's conclusions.
We're not born to hate. Hatred is taught. However, we are born with the capacity to hate. Just because the baby favors one doll doesn't mean he/she hates the other.
Racism is stupid and boring i love diversity it helps you learn and have a better and bigger perspective everyone deserves love and happiness and selfish people are stupid and boring i like selfless people we all should encourage each other, bad people go to hell good people go to heaven ! 👍
it's a truly interesting study...I wonder about the up to 20% that didn't have those biases though. I am a high Enneagram 4 and have shown clear preferences for anyone who looked different from myself or who had skills I didn't have...pretty much since I was at least 4 years old, maybe younger. Which makes me wonder if I would have had a preference for wanting punishment for people similar to myself or not. They might be making some assumptions either way, but truly interesting
Thats crazy I remember being a baby. I told my mom a lot like where she stored my carriage, I remember so many things like all the places she put my playpen. Before I could talk I recognized things by shape and color. I related things to events (ex. Bottle shape and the color equals yummy, blue striped stroller equals outside.) I would look at shape and color to know what it did. I was also good. I assumed all of life was wonderful and everyone was my friend. I also believe in an after and before life because why would I assume everyone is nice and life is perfect. I remember the first shock of dealing with a mean girl at the playground and it changed my life forever. I realized I had anger and I hated it but I knew I would need it to survive and it was unfortunate. I then started to hate people and realize they are different from me and the before life I was used to. I was obsessed with my mom and dad too I loved them and was grateful for them.
The 'prizes' that the tokens could be traded in for were probably junk like erasers, pencils etc. Small prizes like those may excite small children but as kids get older, they lose their luster. I'm thinking this is at least part of the reason why the older kids were less hesitant to give tokens to the other person and didn't care so much about keeping them for themselves.
In the experiment that begins at 10:26, it's not that children become more generous as they grow. What happens is that when they are grown-ups, they know the value of stuff. So, if something has no value, kids are more likely to divide with someone. Put a handful of 100 dolar bills on the table and let's see if the results are the same!
5 months is definitely long enough to understand what you've actually seen in the environment and have preferences based on facts. Whereas older kids have been taught what they SHOULD prefer, rather than what they actually SEE happening
What I have witnessed justifies how we grow-up to be! Nature dictates that it is innate within us, even when we were babies to be self-centered, having to be assured that we get first before anyone else does, especially those whom we don't know personally, or those we are not familiar with. It is quite engaging to know that this only proves our innate behavior can either be still within us as we grow older, or having had the opportunity to be handled by adults who try to correct us before it becomes innate within themselves because they were allowed to continue doing such. It's so amazing how we grow-up to be if not being corrected when we think that this will eventually fade-away naturally. In the end, this is why we really need to be assured that we, as Parents, should be the first and foremost persons who will be observing behaviors and natural tendencies to unfold right before our eyes so we will not deny within ourselves that these things happen for a reason of which should be one of the so many things we should be at the look-out and corrected when they can distinguish what is correct to do from what is not. Being an educator, and proud to say, as being one of the first Teachers of my three wonderful adults now, has given me the greatest gift of fulfillment seeing their changes and development unfold right before my eyes! I will forever be thankful for this gift of parenthood, along with my ever supportive and loving husband, Hans for having to mold and nurture our greatest gift of Parenthood from God to become what they are now, all graduates, having a great time with their individual lives and modesty aside, so proud Parents of our Writer, Artist and Psychologist. So who says its all about nature? In reality, it is both from nature and nurture. Come to thinks of it, it feels so great to have been a part of their growing-up, along with the presence of their ever-supportive Dad! We are so proud of you three. Indeed, God is really good all the time!
"Anyone who listens to a child’s cry and understands what he hears will know that it harbors dormant psychic forces, terrible forces, different from anything commonly assumed. Profound rage, pain, and lust for destruction." ~Wittgenstein
@@Grace4ever22 Its Wittgenstein - he had brilliant many insights. Aside from that - its evidence for the reality of Original Sin...that kids are born with Concupiscence (as we Catholics call it)
@@angelreneetn Its wildly brilliant...Wittgenstein saw what most of us just write off as "aww, he's upset how cute". Its rage of the most profound kind that a baby is expressing. Yes - a little monster. Not completely depraved (that'd be Calvinist) - but when he's angry...don't call it "cute". Recognize it for what it is
They didn't mention it but they did the study with multiple different shirt colors and it has been tested multiples of times. I wrote a research paper on it.
This makes a lot of sense. I’ve always thought people were born with basic ideas of right and wrong, as well as justice, in order to survive, as given through survival of the fittest. The issue with the end though was; What if a baby say the bias of another, and thought that was unfair, wouldn’t that make the bias immoral?
This confirmed what I thought when I first had a baby. It's all already there. He was just lacking life experience and practice. Lucky us that these babies have an abundance of energy and curiosity. So, no need to motivate them to get experience and practice. All that is asked from parents is: Keep the baby fed. Keep it warm. And keep it safe. They'll figure out the rest on their own at their own pace.
More convincing to me than the experiments is when the sitting baby at 10:14 avoids his hand from being bitten by the standing baby which clearly shows we humans know which is bad and good right from the start.
Even though I partially agree with the conclusions of this experiment (I believe our sense of "morality" is a mixture of our environment and our inner nature and they cannot be excluded from each other), I think that the experiment cannot be relied on 100% due to its execution. What makes us think that such young babies are choosing the puppets based on what they have seen and not based on any other random reason (colour, shape, just because)? Also, the fact that some babies did not do what they were expected to do gives us a hint on how the conclusions are not completely reliable. Anyway, that was interesting to watch and the babies were cute.
The colors/shapes were randomized over the course of the study, that would not explain the trend. Also there is never an experiment which shows 100% "expected" results, that's not how reality works.
Yes i agree my brother at 4mths adores blue he will choose blue before any other color. He also likes vibrant objects so he would not choose that sickly yellow of the other puppy.
At the 11:30 mark, I think there's another way to look at this. The argument made in this video, as I understand it, is that because children do not exhibit specific types of behavior when young, they are learning the more complicated behavior as they grow older. The alternative view, the one I lean towards, is that children's ability to think about situations evolve from both culture and more complicated mental processes. In behavioral economics, the question of generosity as tested with the blue and green boards could be an issue of the children thinking that it's a zero-sum game where the other child getting more equates to fewer for the child themselves. If that's the case, the older children may have more complicated mental models and therefore be able to see the situation as something other than a zero-sum game.
Valeron Unications skinner believed that children could be taught anything as long as they are being trained. John Locke and Skinner have similar theories
A baby can tell when other people are being friendly or hostile. Now, does the baby know when THEY are the ones who are misbehaving? Is there a way to test for that?
3:33 *Or maybe, Baby Daisy was thinking,* "Nah, 💚green 👗is not 🍀my color🍏! 🚨My favorite 🌹color💄 is 💃red!" ❤️ *THIS EXPERIMENT IS FLAWED! YOU CAN'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT SOMEONE IS THINKING!*
Janet Wood but you can make assumptions about choices in a controlled situation when its repeated again and again with significant findings. Its about babies choices and what is inferred by that.
I had to do an assignment on this for AP Psych. The studies have some interesting results but there are so many biases and flaws that could factor in to it as well. Weird stuff
Every instance where they showed the baby the puppets for choice, the good puppet was in the researcher's left hand and to the baby's right. I wonder if this was just in the video, or was the case for the entire experiment. Babies could just have a preference for things to their right.
+Ginger Stec good and valid objection. I would guess though that the experiments were repeated with reversed sides. I have another objection: Is it reasonable to assume that a baby as young as these can already grasp the presented scenario (box, lid, trying to open, trying to help, trying to not help, the idea of intention)? In order for the experiment to work it needs the premise that the baby actually understands the interaction it observes. I would claim that these are concepts which cannot be understood by such a young human mind. However, I dont have an answer for why they reacted as they reacted.
They would switch puppet sides, research the experiment. I'm trying to figure out why there are so many people arguing against a study that suggests that people are good by nature. Are you teenagers mad because you have nothing to justify your misanthropy?
Kæla B. "I'm trying to figure out why there are so many people arguing against a study that suggests that people are good by nature" that's called the scientific method which is the essence of knowledge.
How often did they have the "nice" character in the left hand closer to the baby? It could be the babies are more focused on that because they believe the person wants them to have that one rather then the one thats further away.
3:52 the conclusion can also be, that they tend towards those who can be of use, those who can help. it doesn't necessarily showcase selflessness - that being good, and being good towards others is
Could the fact that the puppets were different colors and had different shirts have an effect. Everyone has their color preferences. I really like blue, so would I have chosen the blue one simply for that reason? However I heard somewhere that babies are actually colorblind to a certain age, so color differences might not actually b that big of a deal. I also wondered if they switched the sides the puppets were on. That may or may not have made a difference.
+MoonstonePearl21 The answer is yes they switched the side where the puppet was on to account for the possibility that the children just preferred the puppet that was on one side. They also switched the puppet itself and varied the colors and textures of the puppets. Even absurd possibilities such as "Do girls prefer puppets that are red?" and "Do boys prefer puppets on the left?" are accounted for. This experiment has been carried out many times and the results have been peer reviewed in journals by other experts.
+MoonstonePearl21 The obvious reason you want to switch the puppets is that you want to make sure that the children really are picking the puppet who they think is "good" but you also want to switch the puppets to find out if children just prefer grabbing objects that are to their left as opposed to their right or vice versa. That's not an uninteresting fact for a psychologist if it were to be shown in an experiment. It would be also interesting to follow up with the children to see if they are left-handed or right-handed and if that makes a difference too. If you're a psychologist and you discover something like that, even something like _girls prefer red puppets_ you want to take credit for it...even if that's not what your experiments were designed to look for in the first place! After all, lots of facts are discovered when people were looking for something else completely.
Edwin Luciano Ya. I know. I've studied psychology. That's all very true. You have to try and account for everything that could possibly make a difference. Also yes, following up on the children's dominant hand would be interesting as well. You are absolutely right about so many things being discovered while looking for something else. Just look at Pavlov's dog. Heck sometimes amazing things are discovered by complete accident when people aren't even trying to find anything.
