Citation

Uzefovsky F, Paz Y, Davidov M. Br. J. Psychol. (1953) 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, British Psychological Society, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/bjop.12402

PMID

31190326

Abstract

The current study examined whether and when young infants are sensitive to distressed others, using two experiments with a forced-choice paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that 5- to 9-month-old infants demonstrate a clear pro-victim preference: Infants preferred a distressed character that had been physically harmed over a matched neutral character. Experiment 2 showed that infants' preference for a distressed other is not invariable, but rather depends on the context: Infants no longer preferred the distressed character when it expressed the exact same distress but for no apparent reason. These findings have implications for the early ontogeny of human compassion and morality, addressed in the discussion.

© 2019 The British Psychological Society.

Language: en

Keywords

empathy; infancy; morality