Infants have no conception of morality

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The question as to whether morality is innate has been hotly debated in developmental psychology for decades. Studies have yielded mixed results, although a series of studies suggested that infants already have an understanding of situations in which moral action is required, and that they prefer characters who are good. These findings were seen as evidence that morality is innate.

Now research teams from around the world have joined forces in a replication study to test previous findings. Their results, which have been published in the journal Developmental Science, make it clear: “There is no evidence for innate morality. Children under ten months are not yet capable of distinguishing a good action from a bad one,” says Professor Markus Paulus, Chair of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology at LMU Munich.

International replication study, innovative approach

More than 1,000 infants between the ages of 5.5 and 10.5 months took part in the study. In an experimental framework, they were presented with scenarios featuring characters who behaved differently. Sometimes they helped another character up a hill, and sometimes they hindered the character and pushed it down the hill. Subsequently, the children were prompted to choose between the two characters. Previous findings had suggested that infants preferred the helping character. However, in the new study, the largest conducted to date, around half of the children chose the helping character, while the other half chose the hindering one. “Thus, the children showed no preference for the character that behaved prosocially and helped another character,” says Markus Paulus.

The study was carried out by 40 developmental psychology research teams from all over the world, which are specialized in the behavioral observation of children in experimental settings. As well as the Markus Paulus laboratory, the team of PD Dr. Tobias Schuwerk was another contributor from LMU. Markus Paulus describes the idea of the worldwide collaborative project on infant research as highly innovative and promising as a way of reviewing existing research findings.

In addition to LMU, the following German research institutions contributed to the study: Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Göttingen, Leipzig University, the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig.

 Publication:

Kelsey Lucca u.a.: Infants’ Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers, A Large Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study. In: Developmental Science 2024

For more on the research of Markus Paulus, see:

Markus Paulus currently heads the interdisciplinary research group „The Ontogeny of Normativity“ at LMU's Center for Advanced Studies (CAS).

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