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Helping, fast and slow: Exploring intuitive cooperation in early ontogeny
Tobias Grossmann1, Manuela Missana2, Amrisha Vaish3
1Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Cognition
|November 26, 2019
Summary
Infants develop intuitive cooperation early in life. Faster helping in infants correlates with more prosocial behavior, independent of cognitive control, suggesting intuition guides early cooperation.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Evolutionary Anthropology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Cooperative behavior is fundamental to human societies.
- Adult cooperation is linked to intuitive processes rather than cognitive control.
- Understanding the origins of intuitive cooperation in early development is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the emergence of intuitive cooperation in human infants.
- To examine the relationship between helping behavior speed and prosociality in early ontogeny.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study of infant helping behavior (latency and frequency) at 14 and 18 months.
- Assessed prosocial behavior and its independence from inhibitory control and sociability.
Main Results:
- Infant helping frequency increased and latency decreased significantly between 14 and 18 months.
- Faster helping (shorter latency) was associated with more prosocial behavior (higher frequency) at 18 months.
- This association was independent of infants' inhibitory control and sociability.
Conclusions:
- Prosocial behavior in infants begins to be governed by intuitive processes early in development.
- Intuitive cooperation emerges independently of advanced cognitive control in early human ontogeny.
- Findings support the role of intuition in the evolution of human cooperation.
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