60 minutes Nov 18 - Young babies and morality

[Maria]

A baby as young as three to six months is not a "tabula rasa." They are very much aware of what is going on around them. Furthermore, they want those who disagree with them to be punished...

In psychological studies at a major university baby-lab, researchers offer babies a choice between Cherrios (TM) and Graham Crackers. Lots of babies seem to prefer Cherrios, so when these babies are given a choice between a Cherrios-loving orange-striped cat puppet or the Graham Cracker-loving grey-striped cat puppet, 80 percent of the time, the babies picked the Cherrios-loving orange-striped cat puppet.

Next, the Cherrios-loving babies viewed a puppet show where a grey puppet wearing a blue T-shirt is favored by about 80 percent of those babies when that blue T-shirt puppet prevents the Graham-loving grey-striped puppet from getting a ball. A grey puppet wearing an orange T-shirt who helps the Graham-loving puppet is not favored by them. (A friend of my enemy is also my enemy.)

Children as young as two also display this behavior.

In early childhood labs, I have personally witnessed two and three year olds declare, "He hitted me. He bad." If the "bad" child is not scolded, the "injured" child will usually become upset. They want the "bad" child punished.

[jgress]

I'm not sure what the experiment is proving here. The children seem to be preferring the puppet that prevents the other one from getting the ball, which surely seems like immoral behavior to me. If the children were showing preference for moral behavior, they would be supporting the other puppet, surely.

[jgress]

Sorry, I think I misunderstood the purpose of your post. I thought you were intending to show that young children have moral awareness. It seems rather they have some innate tendency to revenge and favoritism, but not morality. Not exactly news, but it is true the social sciences are still packed with fools who think all our moral or immoral behavior is acquired from cultural input.

[jgress]

Steven Pinker demolished "tabula rasa" in his 2002 book "The Blank Slate". He writes from a Darwinian perspective, but the empirical evidence strongly favors traditional views of human nature.

[Maria]

Using puppet shows, the first experiments done with 3 to 6 month old babies showed roughly 80 percent of these babies preferred the puppets who were moral, kind, and helpful, but disapproved of those puppets who were "mean spirited" by preventing other puppets from getting a ball. Puppets were identical except for the different colored T-shirts. Usually the wearer of the blue T-shirt was the mean-spirited one, but the orange one was the kind and helpful puppet.

Psychologists studied eye contact and gaze length in three month old babies, but in six month olds they let the youngsters show their preference by letting them pick and hug their favorite puppet.

After the results were analyzed, these psychologists came to the conclusion that babies do have an innate sense of morality.

Then they wondered if children have a tendency to do evil. Any experiment that presents evil is scary, and could backfire.

The later experiments where the babies overwhelming preferred the punishment of those puppets who disagreed with them, could be the root of bullying behavior, could it not? I do not like you, so I want you punished mindset. Yet, let's face it, that behavior is seen in children in kindergarten. So, yes, children and babies will favor the knight in shining armor who helps people, but they also have a tendency to seek revenge and favoritism.

The psychologists also studied older children and found that schooling helps them learn to share. While younger children tend to be selfish, older children will generally show more generosity.

However, I have seen children of priests and devout parishioners who are very generous at a very early age. An active prayer life and participating in works of charity helps. I also think that having a large family encourages generosity as children must learn to share, and will model an older sibling who is devout. In addition, there have been studies showing that the father plays a larger role in helping children to become devout Christians. If a father stays home while the mom takes the children to church, then later on, teenage boys and girls will rebel and will want to stay home with dad. If the father is a chanter and goes regularly to church, but the wife stays home, then the children will follow their dad and usually become devout. Intact families are crucial for the development of our faith.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood the purpose of your post. I thought you were intending to show that young children have moral awareness. It seems rather they have some innate tendency to revenge and favoritism, but not morality. Not exactly news, but it is true the social sciences are still packed with fools who think all our moral or immoral behavior is acquired from cultural input.

[Maria]

Steven Pinker demolished "tabula rasa" in his 2002 book "The Blank Slate". He writes from a Darwinian perspective, but the empirical evidence strongly favors traditional views of human nature.

Yes, Skinner made some rash presumptions. Steven Pinker and Chomsky put him in his place.

[joasia]

After the results were analyzed, these psychologists came to the conclusion that babies do have an innate sense of morality.

The psychologists work from preconceived beliefs. I think the test should be monitored for the psychologists too. Identify what their views are because they will see what they want to see based on their own beliefs. Morality is based on conscience beliefs. A 3 month old baby can't make that decision. And did the psychologists consider the variables? What environment were the babies in? What was the condition of their diapers? Was their mother or father in line of their sight? What was the light setting? What time of day did they do the experiment. Did the infant have a feeding before or after the experiment. Did the infant have a nap before or after the experiment. Etc..etc.. This is a bogus experiment. Too many variables to consider.

However, I have seen children of priests and devout parishioners who are very generous at a very early age. An active prayer life and participating in works of charity helps. I also think that having a large family encourages generosity as children must learn to share, and will model an older sibling who is devout. In addition, there have been studies showing that the father plays a larger role in helping children to become devout Christians. If a father stays home while the mom takes the children to church, then later on, teenage boys and girls will rebel and will want to stay home with dad. If the father is a chanter and goes regularly to church, but the wife stays home, then the children will follow their dad and usually become devout. Intact families are crucial for the development of our faith.

I have seen children of priests who have left the Orthodox Church and don't want to care for their parents. I have seen children whose parents are secular, but that child moves closer to God. There is no rule in what will influence a child to move towards God. Jesus Christ showed us that there are no set rules. Judas was one of the disciples and betrayed God. But, Saul, who persecuted the Christians, was turned around. There's the example of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Moses the Ethiopian.
I think that the method of intellectual analysis is wrong. There's something much deeper going on. And God breaks the rules whenever He pleases in order to show us that we are not subject to our circumstances so much as we are subject to the call from God.