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Infants' unprovoked acts of force toward others

Audun Dahl1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. dahl@ucsc.edu.

Developmental Science
|August 27, 2015
PubMed

Insights

Infants sometimes use force against others without being upset. These unprovoked harmful actions decrease later in infancy and may offer early chances for moral learning.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Behavior
  • Moral Development

Background:

  • Infants exhibit higher rates of harming others compared to older individuals.
  • Previous explanations focused on frustration-induced aggression in infants.
  • The role of unprovoked force and its developmental trajectory remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether infants use force against others without provocation.
  • To explore potential reasons for unprovoked force, such as exploration or excessive petting.
  • To examine the developmental course and correlates of unprovoked harmful acts in infants.

Main Methods:

  • Two studies were conducted with infants aged 11 to 24 months.
  • Study 1 utilized maternal reports of infants' use of force.
  • Study 2 involved direct observation of infant behavior.

Main Results:

  • A significant proportion of infants' forceful acts were unprovoked and not linked to distress.
  • Unprovoked harmful acts decreased in the later part of the second year of life.
  • These acts were positively correlated with infant pleasure-seeking tendencies.

Conclusions:

  • Infants' use of force is not solely driven by negative emotions like frustration.
  • Unprovoked harmful actions suggest infants' behavior is not yet consistently guided by an aversion to harming.
  • These early unprovoked acts may represent crucial opportunities for developing early moral understanding.

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