MORAL STUDY From Infants Can Make Value Judgments....

Blank slate? 6-month-old can tell good from bad

Infants Can Make Value Judgments, Finds American Research

       Contrary to the Freudian theory that humans start their lives with a moral 'blank slate" , children may be horn with the ability to tell good from bad, according to a new study.

          Newly born babies apparently start making moral judgments by the time they are six months old, claims a team of psychologists at the infant cognition centre at Yale University in Connecticut.

          The scientists used the ability to tell helpful from unhelpful behaviour as an indication of moral judgment.Infants can even act as judge and jury in the nursery.

          Researchers who asked one-year-old babies to take away treats from a "naughty" puppet found they were sometimes also leaning over and smacking the figure on the head.

         As part of the study, they conducted multiple tests on infants, less than a year old. Firstly, an animated film of simple geometric shapes was screened for the kids to watch. It showed a red ball, with eyes, trying to climb a hill,. A yellow square helped, pushing it up, while a green triangle forced it back down.

          Later, the children were asked to "choose" between the "good guy" square, and the "bad guy" triangle. In 80% of cases the infants chose the squate over the triangle.

          In a second study, the children were shown a toy dog trying to open a box. One teddy hear helped him, while another saton it ito stop him gettign inside.

        The observers found that most babies opted for the friendly teddy bear. To further confirm that the babies were responding to niceness and naughtiness the scientists devised another test.

         A toy cat played with a ball while a cuddly rabbit puppet stood on either side. When the cat lost the ball, the rabbit on the right side returned it to him. while the rabbit on the left side picked it up and ran aqay with it.

        The children were asked to handle anyone one puppet. Most picked the naughty rabbit and smacked it on the head.

         Paul Bloom, Professor of psychology who led the study, said the research counters theories of psychologists such as Sigmund Freud who believed humans began life as "amoral animals" and William James who described a baby's mental life as "one great, blooming, buzzing confusion".

         "There is a growing body of scientific evidence that supports the idea that perhaps some sense of good and evilo is bred in the bone," the Times quoted Bloom as saying.

          Kiley Hamlin, author of the team's Infant Morality report, said: "We spend a lot of time worrying about teaching the difference between good guys and bad guys in the world but this might be something that infants come to the world with."

         Peter Willatts, a lecturer in psychology at Dundee University, said: "You cannot get inside the mind of the baby. you cannot ask them, You have to go on what most attracts their attention."

           We now know that in the first six months babies learn things much quicker than we thought possible. What they are borm with and what they learnis difficult to divide," he added.