Social evaluation and imitation of prosocial and antisocial agents in infants, children, and adults

The question of whether infants prefer prosocial agents over antisocial agents is contentious. Therefore, the first goal of the present study was to replicate previous findings regarding infants’ preference. The second goal was to assess whether infants are more likely to imitate a prosocial agent than an antisocial agent. We tested 9-month-old, 14-month-old, and 4-year-old children. The study used the “opening a box to get a toy” paradigm in which an animal puppet is trying unsuccessfully to open a box and is either helped by a prosocial puppet or hindered by an antisocial puppet. We presented these social events via video, and subsequently administered an imitation task. As an additional control, adults were asked to describe the videos showing the prosocial and antisocial agent. Although most adults were able to identify both agents, the three age groups of children did not prefer the prosocial agent over the antisocial agent, and were not more likely to imitate the prosocial agent. The lack of differences might be explained by methodological issues or by a lack of robustness of the effect

Children’s suggestibility for neutral arbitrary actions in the context of norm violations

This study investigated children’s false memories for neutral arbitrary actions. Five- to six-year-olds (N = 32) were taught four arbitrary actions, each following specific rules. The children then watched a televised adult performing eight actions: the four familiar actions while violating one aspect of each rule script and four unfamiliar actions. Suggestive and non-suggestive questions about all witnessed actions were asked, followed by forced-choice test questions to measure the false memory effect. The likelihood of forming false memories was higher in the suggestive condition than in the non-suggestive condition. There was no effect of previously acquired knowledge about the rules of the actions and no interaction between rule knowledge and suggestion. The results are discussed in light of previous findings in related fields of false memory research

Stress affects the prediction of others’ behavior

Predicting behavior of other people is vital for successful social interactions. We tested whether a stress-induced cortisol increase affects healthy young men’s prediction of another individual’s behavior. Forty-two participants were randomly assigned to a stress or to a control condition. Afterwards, they participated in a modified false-belief task that not only tests false-belief understanding but also the tendency to predict another person’s future behavior based on his former behavior. Subjective ratings and salivary cortisol concentrations revealed a successful stress induction. Stress did not affect participants’ attribution of false beliefs but it increased the probability to predict that a protagonist would act according to his former behavior. Recognizing that stress fosters the interpretation of others’ behavior following their former behavior and not their current goals extends previous research showing that stress fosters our own habitual behavior

The development of children’s egalitarianism in the context of group membership and resource valence

Children’s motivation for the egalitarian allocation of resources is reflected in their allocation of positive and negative resources between themselves and others. In the present study, 6- (n = 29) and 8-year-olds (n = 25) could choose between different allocations of positive and negative resources to themselves and others in a series of games. The other player was either an ingroup member or an outgroup member. Results revealed that, overall and irrespective of resource valence, 8-year-olds were more likely to choose an egalitarian allocation of resources than 6-year-olds. 8-year-olds also shared more positive resources with the outgroup member than 6-year-olds. Children’s egalitarianism is discussed in light of theories of prosocial development.Die Motivation von Kindern, Ressourcen egalitär zu verteilen zeigt sich bei der Verteilung von positiven wie auch negativen Ressourcen zwischen sich selbst und anderen. In dieser Studie konnten 6- (n = 29) und 8-Jährige (n = 25) zwischen verschiedenen Verteilungen von positiven und negativen Ressourcen zwischen sich selbst und einem anderen Kind in einer Reihe von Spielen entscheiden. Das andere Kind war entweder ein Mitglied der Eigengruppe oder ein Mitglied einer Fremdgruppe. Als Ergebnis zeigte sich, dass 8-Jährige häufiger als 6-Jährige unabhängig von der Valenz der Ressource eine Gleichverteilung wählten. Des Weiteren teilten die 8-Jährigen häufiger als 6-Jährige positive Ressourcen egalitär zwischen sich und dem Kind der Fremdgruppe auf. Dieser Egalitarismus bei Kindern wird vor dem Hintergrund von Theorien zur Entwicklung prosozialen Verhaltens diskutiert

Rethinking ‘Rational Imitation’ in 14-Month-Old Infants: A Perceptual Distraction Approach

In their widely noticed study, Gergely, Bekkering, and Király (2002) showed that 14-month-old infants imitated an unusual action only if the model freely chose to perform this action and not if the choice of the action could be ascribed to external constraints. They attributed this kind of selective imitation to the infants' capacity of understanding the principle of rational action. In the current paper, we present evidence that a simpler approach of perceptual distraction may be more appropriate to explain their results. When we manipulated the saliency of context stimuli in the two original conditions, the results were exactly opposite to what rational imitation predicts. Based on these findings, we reject the claim that the notion of rational action plays a key role in selective imitation in 14-month-olds

Remembering in the Context of Internal States: The Role of Sleep for Infant Memory

Research with adults has shown that a person\u27s internal context, or state, influences how memory functions. This factor is rarely considered in research on infant memory, in part because of the practical and ethical difficulties of manipulating these variables in infants. In this article, we argue that models of infant memory will remain limited in scope and accuracy if the internal context of participants is not considered. As a case in point, we present emerging literature on sleep-dependent memory. Our review shows that for infants, timely sleep after a learning experience helps them retain and further process new memories. Studies need to explore the role of prior sleep for encoding, and to tease apart the contributions to infant memory of different types, features, and stages of sleep. We conclude that considering internal states, such as sleep, is necessary for developing a deeper understanding of early human memory

Social evaluation and imitation of prosocial and antisocial agents in infants, children, and adults.

The question of whether infants prefer prosocial agents over antisocial agents is contentious. Therefore, the first goal of the present study was to replicate previous findings regarding infants' preference. The second goal was to assess whether infants are more likely to imitate a prosocial agent than an antisocial agent. We tested 9-month-old, 14-month-old, and 4-year-old children. The study used the "opening a box to get a toy" paradigm in which an animal puppet is trying unsuccessfully to open a box and is either helped by a prosocial puppet or hindered by an antisocial puppet. We presented these social events via video, and subsequently administered an imitation task. As an additional control, adults were asked to describe the videos showing the prosocial and antisocial agent. Although most adults were able to identify both agents, the three age groups of children did not prefer the prosocial agent over the antisocial agent, and were not more likely to imitate the prosocial agent. The lack of differences might be explained by methodological issues or by a lack of robustness of the effect