Babies Can Grasp Ideas of Fairness, Sharing and Selflessness

A recent study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, shows that babies as young as 15 months can already grasp and practice the idea of fairness and sharing. They were also found to be able to identify instances of unfair treatment, associated with a willingness to share. The babies were also found to have various sharing “personalities.”

Says Jessica Sommerville, leader of the study and associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington, “Our findings show that these norms of fairness and altruism are more rapidly acquired than we thought.” Aside from this, the study also revealed that babies are able to associate fairness to altruism. Those babies who were more sensitive to the fair distribution of food were also more likely to share their preferred toy.

The study, which was performed in two phases, involved first showing 47 15-month-old babies a video with their parents. Two people were handed crackers to eat. They were first given the same amount of crackers. On the second time, one person received more crackers than the other.

How did the researchers determine if the babies were reacting negatively to either of the two scenarios? Using the “violation of expectancy”, which is when a baby becomes surprised with a stimulus and they tend to stare at the object longer than usual. The babies were found to stare at scenario 2, with the unequal distribution, more intently. Said Sommerville, "The infants expected an equal and fair distribution of food, and they were surprised to see one person given more crackers or milk than the other." 

In order to ascertain the same babies’ willingness to share, the researchers made the babies choose between two toys; namely a LEGO block and a more elaborately designed LEGO doll. An adult would then ask the baby if he could have one of the toys, and 1/3 of the babies shared their preferred toy and another third shared their non-preferred toy. The remaining third were hesitant to share any toy, which could be because they were nervous, they were uncomfortable around the stranger, they didn’t understand, or they didn’t want to share.

 

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The results showed that there are “individual differences” in altruism. ” When researchers compared the two tasks, they found that the “altruistic sharers were really sensitive to the violation of fairness in the food task,” Sommerville noted. In conclusion, the researchers recognized that the babies could fall into any o f the following groups: the “altruistic sharers” (92 percent), who also stared longer at the video showing unfair distribution; and the “selfish sharers” (86 percent), who also paid more attention to the video showing fair distribution.

According to research published in the journal Nature back in 2010, our brains may be programmed to react to unfair distribution or allocation of monetary rewards. With age, though, a person’s idea of fairness evolves. Research has also shown that young kids prefer things to be equal, but adults take merit more into consideration to divide wealth.

It’s amazing to discover these things about babies and how they perceive things and act a certain way early on. With this in mind, parents can gain a better insight into how their babies’ minds work, and a glimpse into their personality as well. In terms of value formation, parents can help provide an environment and become an example to their children on the importance of sharing and being selfless.


Sources:

• October 16, 2011. “Babies Understand Fairness, Sharing, Selflessness” wfaa.com 

• October 7, 2011. “Babies show sense of fairness, altruism as early as 15 months” medicalxpress.com

• October 8, 2011. Jennifer Welsh. “Babies as Young as 15 Months Grasp Fairness” livescience.com

 

Photography by Alfred Mendoza