Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Human cooperation relies on cognitive mechanisms like empathy and preference for prosociality.
• These mechanisms are considered potential evolved adaptations, with early evidence from infant studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether newborns exhibit a preference for prosocial over antisocial actions.
• To determine if this preference emerges with minimal experience in early infancy.

Main Methods:

• Five-day-old neonates were presented with paired video interactions.
• Stimuli depicted prosocial (e.g., helping) versus antisocial (e.g., hindering) events.
• Newborns' visual attention to each event type was measured.

Main Results:

• Newborns consistently looked longer at prosocial events compared to antisocial events.
• This preference was observed specifically during socially interactive stimuli.
• Findings suggest basic social evaluation mechanisms are present at birth.

Conclusions:

• Neonates possess rudimentary abilities to distinguish and prefer prosocial acts over antisocial ones.
• These foundational social preferences emerge with very limited experience.
• This supports the hypothesis of evolved adaptations underlying human sociomoral systems.