For thousands of years, philosophers have debated whether people are born with a “moral compass” or whether we learn it as we grow older.
Now researchers have found that young babies can make moral judgments and punish antisocial behavior – suggesting we are “naturally good” from birth.
In experiments, the Japanese experts used eye-tracking technology to give eight-month-olds the ability to punish a human-like smudge on a computer screen.
The babies were more likely to issue punishment after seeing it be violent towards a victim, the researchers found.
The results suggest that the motivation to impose a penalty when it is due is intrinsic – something we are born with – as opposed to learned.
A particularly clever form of eye-tracking technology was used in the experiments, allowing aspects of the animation to be controlled by where exactly a baby is looking
ARE WE BORN WITH A MORAL COMPASS?
For millennia, philosophers have pondered the question of whether people are inherently good.
Now researchers at Osaka University have found that eight-month-olds can make moral judgments and punish antisocial behavior – suggesting the moral compass is present at birth.
Punishment for antisocial behavior is unique to humans and is universal across cultures.
However, the evolution of moral behavior is not well understood.
Additionally, it can be very difficult to study decision-making and agency in infants, which is what the researchers wanted to address.
“Morals are an important but mysterious part of what makes us human,” said lead author Yasuhiro Kanakogi of Osaka University.
“We wanted to know if third-party punishment of antisocial others is present from a very young age, as this would help signal whether morality is being learned.”
For the study, researchers recruited 124 eight-month-old children to sit on a parent’s lap and watch animations on a computer screen.
A particularly sophisticated gaze tracking system was used so that aspects of the animation are controlled by exactly where a baby is looking.
First, the babies were presented with two different colored anthropomorphic blobs with eyes – one green and one orange.
If a baby looked at the orange patch on the left, a rock would fall and crush it. If the baby looked at the green blob on the right, the rock would fall on the green blob and crush it.
Next, each baby was shown an animation featuring the two blobs that they could not control with their eyes.
This animation, played three times, showed the green blob chasing the orange blob across the screen and hitting it in an attempt to crush it in an act of aggression.
First, the babies were presented with two different colored blobs with eyes – one green and one orange. Whoever they looked at, a stone would fall on it
Here the green blob chases the orange blob across the screen and crushes it – an act of aggression – while a baby looks on
Each infant was then shown the original screen where they could drop the rock onto one of the blobs just by looking at it.
Overall, the babies chose to drop the rock on the green blob more often than the orange blob after seeing the green blob being aggressive, researchers found.
Before seeing that the green blob was aggressive, the babies decided to drop the rock on the orange blob and the green blob equally.
According to the scientists, this is a sign that the babies wanted to punish the green blob for being aggressive towards the orange blob.
“The results were surprising,” Kanakogi said. “We found that preverbal infants punished the antisocial aggressor by focusing more on the aggressor.
“The observation of this behavior in very young children suggests that humans may have acquired behavioral tendencies toward moral behavior during evolution.
“In particular, punishment for antisocial behavior may have evolved into an important element of human cooperation.”
Shown is a graphical summary showing the experimental setup. Overall, the babies chose to drop the rock on the green blob more often than the orange blob after seeing the green blob being aggressive, researchers found
The team acknowledged the possibility that the babies might have been looking at the green blob more for other reasons — like expecting it to move around the screen and start chasing the orange blob again.
To verify their results, they therefore performed three control experiments to rule out alternative interpretations of the infants’ gaze behavior.
For example, in one of the control experiments, a soft object that did not crush the blobs was used instead of a stone for the gaze tracking phases.
In this case, the researchers found that the babies stopped looking at the green patch after his aggressive display, which they believed was because the babies couldn’t punish him.
The researchers claim that their study is the first in the world to directly measure infants’ moral decision-making.
Further experiments using this unique gaze-tracking method could “uncover undiscovered cognitive abilities in preverbal infants,” they say.
The new study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
BABIES CAN RECOGNIZE WHO IS CLOSELY RELATED BASED ON THEIR EXCHANGES OF SALIVA BY KISSING OR FOOD SHAREING, STUDY CLAIMS
According to a 2022 study, babies can use their saliva exchange to identify who is in close relationships by kissing or sharing food.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) watched babies and toddlers interact with human actors and puppets.
These interactions included an activity that involved salivating (sharing food) and an activity that did not involve salivating (passing a ball).
Both babies and toddlers expect actors and dolls to have a strong relationship and “a mutual commitment to help each other” when they share saliva, the team noted.
When a baby or toddler sees two people kissing or eating food from the same portion, the adolescent is likely to perceive them as emotionally close and committed to looking after each other, the results suggest.
For the study, the researchers observed toddlers (ranging in age from 16.5 to 18.5 months) and babies (8.5 to 10 months) while observing interactions between the human actors and puppets.
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