Social Inferences from Helping and Hindering

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Humans choose whom to spend time with, how to share resources, and who to ask for help. Infants and toddlers display such social preferences for agents who help over those who hinder, as well as those who align with social partners over those who do not (Carpenter, Uebel, & Tomasello, 2013; Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007; Hepach, Vaish, Müller, & Tomasello, 2019; Powell & Spelke, 2018a). It remains unclear, however, if infants use such behaviors to infer others’ social preferences or affiliations. Do they have expectations about others’ preferences for and likely behavior toward prosocial agents? Past work has focused only on approach behaviors, and has provided inconsistent or incomplete data on infants’ expectations (e.g. Hamlin et al., 2007; Kuhlmeier, Wynn, & Bloom, 2003; Powell & Spelke, 2018b).

This study asks if 12- to 14-month-old infants reason about how a protagonist will behave following helping and hindering events. Infants will first watch the protagonist build a tower with blocks while sitting alone. Next, with the helper and hinderer present, the protagonist will struggle to complete a new tower because one block is out of reach. In some familiarization events the helper will reach for the block and place it in the protagonist’s hand. In others, the hinderer will reach for the block and place it further away from the protagonist. Finally, we will test expectations about two types of outcome events. Half of the infants will be randomly assigned to the Approach Condition, in which the protagonist will approach the helper in “expected” test trials and will approach the hinderer in “unexpected” test trials. The remaining infants will be assigned to the Emotion Condition, in which the protagonist will look and smile at the helper in expected test trials (expected) and look and smile at the hinderer in unexpected test trials. All infants will see two pairs of expected and unexpected outcomes, with order counterbalanced across participants.

Data from 64 infants (32/condition) will be collected via online sessions conducted over Zoom prior to the conference. We will compare infants’ looking times to expected and unexpected test trials using a repeated measures ANOVA, with condition (Approach vs. Emotion), familiarization order (helping vs. hindering first), and test order (expected vs. unexpected first) as between-participants factors. Paired samples t-tests will be used to compare looking time between the unexpected and expected outcomes within each condition.

In both the Approach and Emotion Conditions, we predict infants will look longer when the protagonist directs prosocial behavior (approach or positive emotion) toward the hinderer. These results would replicate and clarify past research on expectations of social approach (Kuhlmeier et al., 2003; Hamlin et al., 2007). Results from the Emotion Condition will provide a novel test into the range of behaviors infants associate with social interaction and affiliation, potentially revealing that infants make emotional inferences in the context of social and not just instrumental outcomes (Skerry & Spelke, 2014). Null findings would suggest, instead, that inferences about emotion are not integrated into social reasoning at this age.

Authors

• Alexis Sierra Smith-Flores, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Lindsey Powell, University of California - San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author