Context-dependent social evaluation in 4.5-month-old human infants: the role of domain-general versus domain-specific processes in the development of social evaluation

Abstract

The ability to distinguish friends from foes allows humans to engage in mutually beneficial cooperative acts while avoiding the costs associated with cooperating with the wrong individuals. One way to do so effectively is to observe how unknown individuals behave toward third parties, and to selectively cooperate with those who help others while avoiding those who harm others. Recent research suggests that a preference for prosocial over antisocial individuals emerges by the time that infants are 3 months of age, and by 8 months, but not before, infants evaluate others’ actions in context: they prefer those who harm, rather than help, individuals who have previously harmed others. Currently there are at least two reasons for younger infants’ failure to show context-dependent social evaluations. First, this failure may reflect fundamental change in infants’ social evaluation system over the first year of life, in which infants first prefer helpers in any situation and only later evaluate prosocial and antisocial actors in context. On the other hand, it is possible that this developmental change actually reflects domain-general limitations of younger infants, such as limited memory and processing capacities. To distinguish between these possibilities, 4.5-month-olds in the current studies were habituated, rather than familiarized as in previous work, to one individual helping and another harming a third party, greatly increasing infants’ exposure to the characters’ actions. Following habituation, 4.5-month-olds displayed context-dependent social preferences, selectively reaching for helpers of prosocial and hinderers of antisocial others. Such results suggest that younger infants’ failure to display global social evaluation in previous work reflected domain-general rather than domain-specific limitations.

Infants’ and Young Children’s Preferences for Prosocial over Antisocial Others

“…To investigate whether infants also consider the context in which prosocial and antisocial actions occur, infants were shown scenarios in which helpers and hinderers directed their positive or negative actions towards individuals the infant had previously seen behaving prosocially or antisocially toward an unknown third party. Across several studies, 4.5-, 8-, and 19-month-olds preferred those who helped previously prosocial others and those who hindered previously antisocial others [Hamlin, 2014;. These studies suggest that infants positively evaluate those that reward and punish appropriately, consistent with the fourth feature of our intuition-based definition of morality: moral evaluations are influenced by the context in which actions occur.…”

“…First, infants do not appear to be surprised by hindering events; that is, they do not look longer following unhelpful versus helpful acts [e.g., Hamlin, 2013Hamlin, , 2014Hamlin et al, 2013;Van de Vondervoort et al, 2018]. This suggests that infants' evaluation of helpers and hinderers does not reflect the same kind of (presumably) emotionless cognitive process as their sense that certain physical events are "wrong," such as when two objects appear to occupy the same space at the same time [Baillargeon et al, 1985].…”

The Conceptual and Empirical Case for Social Evaluation in Infancy

“…In analyses much like the one TTR make, we have argued specifically that morality is much more than a preference for helpers and aversion to hinderers (specifically, those whose actions facilitate or prevent others' unfulfilled goals). For instance, by four and a half months of age, infants prefer those who prevent the goals of those who have hindered others [Hamlin, 2014;; by eight months, they prefer those who try but fail to help over those who try but fail to hinder [but, intriguingly, not those who successfully help or hinder over those who try but fail to do so; Hamlin, 2013c]. And at 10 months, infants only prefer helpers to hinderers if both knew what they were doing was helpful or unhelpful, just as adults do [Hamlin, Ullman, Tenenbaum, Goodman, & Baker, 2013].…”

Infants possess an abstract expectation of ingroup support

“…First, when given no evidence that individuals belong to the same group, infants do not expect these individuals to help one another. For example, in experiments by Hamlin et al using nonhuman characters (e.g., different blocks with eyes), infants ages 4.5-19 mo saw help events, in which a helper made it possible for a protagonist to achieve its goal (e.g., helped the protagonist reach the top of a steep hill), and hinder events, in which a hinderer prevented the protagonist from achieving its goal (e.g., knocked the protagonist down to the bottom of the hill) (35)(36)(37). Across ages and scenarios, infants looked equally at the help and hinder events, suggesting they did not expect help for the protagonist.…”