Preverbal infants affirm third-party interventions that protect victims from aggressors

Kanakogi, Yasuhiro; Inoue, Yoshio; Matsuda, Goh; Butler, David L.; Hiraki, Kei; Myowa‐Yamakoshi, Masako

doi:10.1038/s41562-016-0037

Cited by 125 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Third, when watching the character-familiarization trials, infants in the bully condition had to attribute to the character a different type of power, fear-based or coercive power. This seemed very likely, as there is now considerable evidence that even young infants correctly perceive hitting, stealing, and hindering as negative, antisocial actions (43)(44)(45)(46). Apart from the bully's negative acts, the protagonists' fearful reactions (i.e., wincing and saying "Ouch!," moving away defensively without attempting to resist or retaliate, and keeping their bodies turned away from the bully) might also signal to infants that the bully exerted fear-based power over the protagonists.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies

Margoni

Baillargeon

Surian

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We examined whether 21-month-old infants could distinguish between two broad types of social power: respect-based power exerted by a leader (who might be an authority figure with legitimate power, a prestigious individual with merited power, or some combination thereof) and fear-based power exerted by a bully. Infants first saw three protagonists interact with a character who was either a leader (leader condition) or a bully (bully condition). Next, the character gave an order to the protagonists, who initially obeyed; the character then left the scene, and the protagonists either continued to obey (obey event) or no longer did so (disobey event). Infants in the leader condition looked significantly longer at the disobey than at the obey event, suggesting that they expected the protagonists to continue to obey the leader in her absence. In contrast, infants in the bully condition looked equally at the two events, suggesting that they viewed both outcomes as plausible: The protagonists might continue to obey the absent bully to prevent further harm, or they might disobey her because her power over them weakened in her absence. Additional results supported these interpretations: Infants expected obedience when the bully remained in the scene and could harm the protagonists if defied, but they expected disobedience when the order was given by a character with little or no power over the protagonists. Together, these results indicate that by 21 months of age, infants already hold different expectations for subordinates' responses to individuals with respect-based as opposed to fear-based power.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies

Margoni

Baillargeon

Surian

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…These results relate to 2 sets of prior findings. First, we saw in the Introduction that in the absence of group and power cues, 6-mo-olds looked equally whether protagonists who had witnessed a harm transgression chose to intervene or not (38). Our research shows that infants respond similarly when nonleaders witness a within-group fairness transgression: It is only leaders who are expected to intervene.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…The younger the age at which such expectations can be observed, and the richer and more varied they are, the more compelling will be the conclusion that an abstract expectation of authority guides early reasoning about leaders. The other way will be to adapt the social-preference measure used by Kanakogi et al (38). Based on their results, we would expect infants to show a preference for a leader who intervened over one who did not, and for a nonleader who intervened over one who did not.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Infants expect leaders to right wrongs

Stavans

Baillargeon

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Anthropological and psychological research on direct third-party punishment suggests that adults expect the leaders of social groups to intervene in within-group transgressions. Here, we explored the developmental roots of this expectation. In violation-of-expectation experiments, we asked whether 17-mo-old infants (n = 120) would expect a leader to intervene when observing a within-group fairness transgression but would hold no particular expectation for intervention when a nonleader observed the same transgression. Infants watched a group of 3 bear puppets who served as the protagonist, wrongdoer, and victim. The protagonist brought in 2 toys for the other bears to share, but the wrongdoer seized both toys, leaving none for the victim. The protagonist then either took 1 toy away from the wrongdoer and gave it to the victim (intervention event) or approached each bear in turn without redistributing a toy (nonintervention event). Across conditions, the protagonist was either a leader (leader condition) or a nonleader equal in rank to the other bears (nonleader condition); across experiments, leadership was marked by either behavioral or physical cues. In both experiments, infants in the leader condition looked significantly longer if shown the nonintervention as opposed to the intervention event, suggesting that they expected the leader to intervene and rectify the wrongdoer’s transgression. In contrast, infants in the nonleader condition looked equally at the events, suggesting that they held no particular expectation for intervention from the nonleader. By the second year of life, infants thus already ascribe unique responsibilities to leaders, including that of righting wrongs.

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“…This was not previously tested, as in Kanakogi et al's (2013) study, the only previous study to examine preference for a victim versus non-victim, the unharmed other was a bystander, who was present during the bullying incident yet did not help the victim; this bystander, therefore, may be perceived as indirectly complicit in the aggressive act and therefore not truly neutral. Indeed, in a more recent study (Kanakogi et al, 2017), the authors showed that 6-month-old infants preferred a bystander character that intervened on behalf of the bullied character over a passive bystander. In the current study (Experiment 1), we therefore examined whether a preference for a hurt over a neutral, unhurt character is replicated using a fully matched comparison protagonist, who did not observe the aggression occurring and is therefore completely uninvolved in the bullying incident.…”

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confidence: 98%

Young infants are pro‐victims, but it depends on the context

Uzefovsky

Paz

Davidov

2019

British J of Psychology

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The current study examined whether and when young infants are sensitive to distressed others, using two experiments with a forced‐choice paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that 5‐ to 9‐month‐old infants demonstrate a clear pro‐victim preference: Infants preferred a distressed character that had been physically harmed over a matched neutral character. Experiment 2 showed that infants’ preference for a distressed other is not invariable, but rather depends on the context: Infants no longer preferred the distressed character when it expressed the exact same distress but for no apparent reason. These findings have implications for the early ontogeny of human compassion and morality, addressed in the discussion.

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Preverbal infants affirm third-party interventions that protect victims from aggressors

Cited by 125 publications

References 25 publications

Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies

Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies

Infants expect leaders to right wrongs

Young infants are pro‐victims, but it depends on the context

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