On May 21, 2010, at 12:41 AM, Mike Beggs wrote:
> The research contradicts the belief promoted by psychologists such as
> Sigmund Freud that babies are born ''amoral animals'' and acquire a
> sense of right and wrong through conditioning.
>
> In one experiment, babies aged between six months and a year watched
> an animated film in which a ball with eyes tries to climb a hill while
> a square tries to help push it up and a triangle tries to force it
> back down.
>
> At the end of the film, scientists tested which shape the babies
> favoured by measuring how long they spent looking at a picture of each
> one. In 80 per cent of cases, the babies chose the helpful character
> over the unhelpful one.
>
> Paul Bloom, the psychologist who heads the study team, said: ''Some
> sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.''
Maybe babies like squares better than triangles.
Really, this is a pretty heroic conclusion from a single experiment. Maybe the baby identifies with the ball-with-eyes and likes the more helpful shape for selfish reasons. Who knows?
Doug