Researchers at Yale University developed studies to answer the question: Do babies have a sense of right and wrong? What they came up with may surprise you.
Read The moral life of babies, on NYTimes.com. Be sure to watch the video.
Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
This is an extremely interesting article to me….I wonder, though, how a baby born with HIGH genetic traits for lack of empathy would test out on this test as a baby?
I think though, it does highlight that BABIES are not born “blank slates” though, and that the EARLY (preverbal) months and years are HIGHLY IMPORTANT.
We knew these infant times were/are important in animals, so I can’t understand why no one would “get it” that the pre-verbal times of an infant would not be VGERY IMPORTANT. We do know that the infant’s BRAIN IS GROWING and forming tissue and connections, so how could these early months NOT be of critical importance.
A kitten is born with its eyes closed, and if you were to patch one of their eyes for only a few days at the “proper” (critical) time that they are supposed to open, the eye itself will not be harmed but it will forever have NO CONNECTION to the brain that interprets “sight”—-because since that eye got no light, it never developed the connections in the brain. I wonder what connections in the baby’s brain are NEVER DEVELOPED if that infant is not cuddled, interacted with, etc. We learned in WWII in t he British orphanages that babies actually require interaction more than just feeding and bathing in order to even LIVE. Babies will DIE if they are not “wanted” and cared for in a LOVING WAY. It is also called “failure to thrive syndrome.” I have actually witnessed this in infants whose mothers were teenagers who did not really bond with their infants and didn’t know how (or want to in some cases) interact with the baby more than minimially.
So, what about the kids who are plopped into a day care at age 6 weeks where they are primarily left to lie in their crib rather than receive adequate interaction? They may be clean and fed, but are they getting the interaction necessary to develop empathy? Wonder how a 9 month old that had been in day care since age 6 weeks would test out on “morality?”
Donna
Very interesting. I know this is a scientific study but it does tip into spirituality also, if we “come in ” with an innate sense of right and wrong.
We have all seen people emerge from cruel neglectful backgrounds with their sense of right and wrong intact…I watched the video
A psychopathic baby may well choose the “helpful” puppet because they can manipulate a helpful one to do what they want! It does not nessecarily mean the baby has a sense of right and wrong.
Psychopaths seem to always choose “nice” people, no news there.
in the womb a psychopathic baby might be all important, have every need met, feel comfortable and secure, possess a sharp instinct to keep it that way! what develops empathy here? the only crying a psychopathic baby will be doing will be to get its own way, and nice friendly people are the perfect breeding grounds for the “cuckoo” to take control and push every other competing sibling out of the picture. What does a mother do? love the child no matter what, turn a blind eye and hope for the best….
Scientific studies are slow, costly, and there are enough psychopaths out there at this stage to start their own scientific study…how to scam the entire population. Stop em!
Donna, I found the article to be interesting, as well, but rather frightening at the same time.
Bulletproof, I think your insight makes sense to me. I wonder, can spathy be taught OUT of a child? Is it possible that an infant that is raised in a responsible, honest, and supportive environment develop into a healthy, productive, and empathetic adult even if it demonstrates spath tendencies?
Now, here’s the question that I have with regard to infants and spathy (true story): a baby is born to a couple that engages in moral, ethical, and criminal acts. Both the mother and father are deviants and have been found guilty of rape. What are the odds that this baby (now 18 months) will be genetically predisposed to spathy? The mother, out on bond until sentencing, has said to someone, “I can’t believe that we were found guilty. After all, she (rape victim) is a known Party Girl.” As an aside, I nearly got sick when I heard this quote.
Already, since the parents have been found guilty and are awaiting sentencing, people (even within the immediate family members) are eyeballing this kid (and, other offspring) as “Bad Seeds.” This baby is 18 months, and is being shunned by aunts, uncles, and cousins, and will have to carry the burden of its parents’ crimes for the rest of its life. What kind of hope is there that this poor kid will be an empathetic human being given its genetic history and the treatment that its experiencing at this stage of its life?
Is this how the cycle of spathy and abuse continues? I think it would be an interesting study to follow this child into its adulthood. Long, long study, to be sure, but it might provide some insight into what, specifically, contributes to spathy.
Much to respond to here, but will only respond to a few things as my hands have been very bad the last couple of days, so I have had to keep my typing to a minimum.
Evidence of empathy —
“Human babies, notably, cry more to the cries of other babies than to tape recordings of their own crying, suggesting that they are responding to their awareness of someone else’s pain, not merely to a certain pitch of sound.”
“ ‘Tis not contrary to reason,” he wrote, “to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” To have a genuinely moral system, in other words, some things first have to matter, and what we see in babies is the development of mattering.”
— And why we see no moral system in ppaths. Not a damn thing matters outside themselves.
“After showing the babies the scene, the experimenter placed the helper and the hinderer on a tray and brought them to the child. In this instance, we opted to record not the babies’ looking time but rather which character they reached for, on the theory that what a baby reaches for is a reliable indicator of what a baby wants. In the end, we found that 6- and 10-month-old infants overwhelmingly preferred the helpful individual to the hindering individual. This wasn’t a subtle statistical trend; just about all the babies reached for the good guy.”
—- Even the ppaths reach for the good guy. In fact, if the population here can be regarded as a study group and are any indication, the ppaths reach for the REALLY good guy. Because we can be guaranteed to care; to override our own safety and security for that of others?
“All that we can safely infer from what the babies reached for is that babies prefer the good guy and show an aversion to the bad guy. But what’s exciting here is that these preferences are based on how one individual treated another, on whether one individual was helping another individual achieve its goals or hindering it.”
— Evidence of a sense of society/ community, and what helps or hinders that drive to such? Which, we all have seen, is NOT present in the ppath.
“Babies possess certain moral foundations the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness.”
—okay, of the babies who did not respond in this way, what can be inferred from their responses? For us the next step would be what are the behaviours, patterns of behavior and suppositions about babies who don’t show the majority traits? To evolve the study into one that could link the decisions being made to genetics brain scanning could be incorporated ”“ so that the experience of the babies’ choices could be mapped.
Very briefly,The story I was going around with in my head, was all babies come in with empathy. it’s innate. They would be able to sense (in a preverbal primal way) suffering, emotional pain in the womb and respond to it from a place of empathy (real self), then given too much pain to deal with they could get to a point where they “shut down” empathic response (real self) because it’s too distressing and employ defence mechanisms, one of those defense mechanisms is psychopathic (along with schizoid, Rigid, Oral and masochistic) (Reich 1950’s)…..with help and love from a loving human being we can Learn to trust again and so open back up to our essential nature, real self….which is empathic, co-operative, productive and loving….
The story I now have in my head is that… a psychopath cannot be healed, therefore has nothing to re-connect to, has never “shut down” feelings in favour of a defense mechanism because there were no feelings in the first place to protect…so that all the love in the world won’t bring them “back” from the dark edge of no remorse….
It appears having empathy is only one scenario, not the whole picture.
If babies are BORN psychopathic then it is akin to “another species ” that are remarkably close in appearance to the other but are vastly different. They may do the same things, but for completely different reasons.
bulletproof – ‘It appears having empathy is only one scenario, not the whole picture.’ YES!
i had a similar paradigm in my mind – now have adjusted it also. it’s a pretty big adjustment.
i bet there is some genetic reformulation that could be done. stem cell therapy or something. we will not see it’s development in our lifetimes – nor a social will to use it.
But, even if we COULD genetically intervene, would that put an end to spathy? I don’t believe that it would. With some, it has to be genetic. But, with others, it’s a learned behavior (as in my former family).
Does anyone remember the movie, “The Bad Seed?” About the little girl who is clearly ppath. If you have never seen it, I strongly recommend it. Two loving parents produce a beautiful child. The child is a sociopath to the Nth degree, and they cannot reconcile this beautiful little girl with the monster that she truly is – a murderer at her young age. It is an older movie, but a very poignant glimpse into the sociopathic child.
I think that prior to the 1970’s, the film industry and playwrights took a serious look at sociopathy as an anomaly – something out of the ordinary and addressed it as such. Today, media advertising, network programming, and the music industry has thrown over to the “Dark Side” and has actually capitalized on sociopathy as something that is not only acceptable, but encouraged.
So, with this disturbing trend in accepting spathy as appropriate behavior, would genetic intervention even matter?
buttons – i think you are quite right about the direction in the movies.
did you ever read the Incredible Mr. Ripley series? It was written by Barbara Highsmith andis about a ppath. a weighty new bio has been published about her. About 4 pages in, i was a bit shocked to see the cluster b traits displayed in all their glory. So, this woman, who had written such an eloquent ppath character…..
i do think that spathy would disappear over generations, if the genetic roots of it were ripped out. you are quite right in that there are learned behaviours (connected with all disorders and all dysfunctional dynamics) – my own mother’s father was a violent alcoholic, and although my parent’s barely drank, i have a LOT of the tendencies of a child of an alcoholic – and these would take generations to weed out. but i believe if the root was gone, that over time, the branches would die out also.
just my take on in.
WOW………..we’re doing some deep discussions, this morning! LOVE IT!!!! All of that rice pudding between my ears is getting electrified into brain matter, for a change! 😀
Well, my understanding is based upon my college Biology classes. We reviewed a number of studies (back BEFORE genetic engineering was possible) of selective breeding and propagation. Plants and animals were specifically bred to “weed out” certain genetic traits and maintain other specific traits.
Over a course of generations, it appeared that a genetically linked group of mice had been “cured” of a specific physical issue. Then, after about 18 generations, WHAMMO!!!!!!!! This trait pops back into the genetic code. Same with plant studies. So, the bottom line of these studies seemed to be that, no matter how human beings attempt to alter genetics, there will always be that random anomaly.
And, I have to say that I have a personal aversion to genetic engineering. It has nothing to do with stem cells, etc., but it has to do with the Human Condition. We are not God and we’re playing God by GMO’s and the consequences of splicing animal genes into genetic information of plants. This could be a website all on its own, eh? But, my very personal feeling is that we cannot “cure” the world of human frailties, be they spathy or defective heart valves. If we tamper with one thing, something else is going to occur as a random course of Nature.
Boy, I need more coffee and a Tylenol, after that! LOLOLOLOL
buttons, one step
Hee hee the rice pudding between the ears certainly gets electrified on meeting, falling in love with and experiencing a psychopath up close!
You have to think a way through it, other option? go nuts. I just know I will be mulling this over in the brain matter till I die…as for tackling this psychopath at the genetic level or stem cell level…as Buttons says and I think it is the nature of the Universe:
there will always be that random anomaly