Psychology In The News | Babies and Morality

At what point do human beings learn to distinguish right from wrong?

Landmark research by Hamlin et al (2007) suggested that young babies possess an innate moral compass. Their experiment showed babies a puppet show featuring characters helping or hindering another character trying to climb a hill. The results were striking: 88% of ten-month-olds and 100% of six-month-olds showed a preference for the ‘helper’ character.

However, this field of developmental psychology has faced ongoing replication challenges. Enter ManyBabies, a global consortium of developmental psychologists, who conducted a massive replication study involving 567 babies across 37 research labs on five continents. Their findings contradicted Hamlin et al’s research. They found that babies showed no preference for helpful characters over hinderers.

This new research raises questions about John Locke's ‘tabula rasa’ theory, which suggests humans enter the world as blank slates, gaining knowledge solely through experience. However, the story isn't straightforward. Previous successful replications of the helper-hinderer effect exist, and methodological differences might explain the conflicting results. The Many Babies study used digital videos instead of live puppet shows, which could have affected how babies engaged with the characters.

Michael Frank, ManyBabies' founder, cautions against hasty conclusions, suggesting this result simply represents one well-executed investigation that didn't support the original hypothesis. The question remains: are babies born with an innate sense of morality, or do they learn it through experience? The answer to this question may require more research with many more babies.

References:

Hamlin, J., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450, 557–559 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature... (accessed 8.2.25)

Are we moral blank slates at birth? A new study offers some clues https://theconversation.com/ar... (accessed 8.2.25)

https://manybabies.org/

Watch the video footage and then answer the following questions!

1. Identify two methodological differences between Hamlin et al's (2007) original study and the ManyBabies replication study.

2. Evaluate the positive impact that these methodological differences could have had on either the validity or the reliability of this research.

3. Outline the ethical considerations involved in conducting research with infant participants in both studies.

4. To what extent can we draw causal conclusions from the behavioural measures used in these studies?

5. Compare the validity of using a standardised digital presentation versus live puppet shows in infant research.

Extension / discussion: to what extent do studies such as these help us to understand infant morality?