When we look at babies, we can’t help but feel how blindly they seem to follow everything they see adults do. However, a new study published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development poses that babies are not as gullible as we think they are. In fact, evidence supports that they might be just as capable of telling the difference between a reliable and an unreliable source as the next person.
To test the theory, researchers tried out a unique experiment that involved 60 babies who were between 13 and 16 months old. They were then divided into two groups. One group was assigned to a reliable source, while the other was introduced to an unreliable one. To gain the infants' initial trust, the source person acted excited about a box in order to entice the babies to take a look at what might be inside. The former group, of course, found a nice surprise waiting for them in the box, while the latter ended up discovering nothing inside.
The next leg of the experiment then had the sources using their foreheads to turn on a push-on light. Researchers waited and observed to find out how many of the infants would follow suit. According to results, only 34 percent of the babies who were grouped with the unreliable source followed the example. On the other hand, 61 percent of the babies who were grouped with the reliable source tried turning on the push-on light with their foreheads.
"This shows infants will imitate behaviour from a reliable adult," concluded second author Ivy Brooker, a PhD student in the Concordia Department of Psychology and a member of the Centre for Research in Human Development. "In contrast, the same behavior performed by an unreliable adult is interpreted as irrational or inefficient, therefore not worth imitating."
Infants, it seems, are capable of discerning trustworthy or untrustworthy individuals at base level. As parents, it is important not to undermine this ability if we want our children to learn to trust us.
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(Photo source: sxc.hu)
