Intention-based evaluations of distributive actions by 4-month-olds
Alessandra Geraci1, Luca Surian2
1Department of Social and Educational Sciences of the Mediterranean Area, University for Foreigners of Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Insights
Four-month-old infants can understand an agent's intention behind distributing resources. They prefer observing agents who attempt fair distribution over those who attempt unfair distribution.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Social Cognition
Background:
- Infants' understanding of social interactions and intentions is a key area in developmental psychology.
- Previous research suggests infants can infer intentions from actions, but less is known about their understanding of distributive justice.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether four-month-old infants can consider the intentions of agents performing distributive actions.
- To determine if infants differentiate between fair and unfair distribution attempts based on agent intentions.
Main Methods:
- Employed the Violation of Expectation (VoE) paradigm across three experiments (1-3) and the Preferential Looking paradigm in one experiment (4).
- Infants observed agents attempting to distribute resources either fairly or unfairly, with a focus on failed distribution attempts.
- Controlled for perceptual factors and affiliative behaviors in subsequent experiments.
Main Results:
- Infants looked longer at failed fair distribution events compared to failed unfair distribution events, indicating attention to intentions.
- In a simultaneous presentation, infants showed a preference for looking at the fair distributor over the unfair one.
- Results suggest infants do not merely react to outcomes but attend to the agent's underlying intentions.
Conclusions:
- Four-month-old infants possess an early ability to infer intentions from distributive actions.
- Infants demonstrate a preference for agents who exhibit attempts at fair resource distribution.
- This study provides evidence for the early development of social evaluation and fairness considerations in infants.
Abstract:
Four-month-olds' ability to consider the intentions of agents performing distributive actions was investigated in four experiments, using the Violation of Expectation paradigm (VoE) (Experiments 1-3) and the Preferential Looking paradigm (Experiment 4). In Experiment 1, infants were presented with two events showing two types of failed attempts to perform a distribution. In an attempt to distribute fairly, the distributor first tried to reach one of the recipients to deliver an apple, he failed, and then attempted to reach the other recipient to deliver a second apple and also failed. In an attempt to distribute unfairly, a different distributor tried unsuccessfully to bring resources always to the same recipient. Infants looked reliably longer at failed fair distribution events, suggesting that they did not just react to the actions outcomes and they attended to agents' intentions. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed alternative explanations based on perceptual factors or affiliative behaviors. In Experiment 4, during the test trials, infants were shown both distributors simultaneously and they preferred to look at the fair rather than at the unfair distributor. Overall, these findings reveal an early ability to take into account distributors' intentions and a preference for watching agents that tried to distribute resources fairly.
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