DOING THE RIGHT THING
I read once that there is evidence that we are born knowing right from wrong. I searched for this evidence recently and found a summary of studies with infants by Christian Jarrett. He referred to a 2010 study by researchers at Yale University[I could not find the reference] with babies as young as 3 months watching an animated film showing different shaped wooden blocks on a hill and these blocks represented different ways that they were helping or hindering another block from getting up the hill. The babies preferred looking at the helpful blocks possibly suggesting a preference for altruistic social behavior [being helpful]. He reported that similar research with 5 month olds [no reference] appears to show that they attended to a character that hindered a previously obstructive individual instead of helping them. Also, an awareness of what is fair and preference for that seemed to be demonstrated in a University of Washington study [reference not found] where 13 month old babies watched one researcher not being fair in distributing crackers and another researcher being fair. They were more inclined to interact with the fair researcher possibly indicating a preference for fairness. Finally, other research [again no reference] has demonstrated that babies by age one will offer comfort to someone who has hurt themselves [no reference found] and help someone obtain something that is out of their reach [from a University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. “Altruistic babies? Study shows infants are willing to give up food, help others.” February 4, 2020]. These behaviors appear to be spontaneous and not learned and makes these researchers wonder if humans are born with an awareness of what is morally right and good. I also found a study by Paul Bloom, Ph.D. at Yale University from the Mind and Development Lab who studied infants as young as 6 months watching puppet shows where one of the puppets helped another puppet open a box and another show where one puppet hindered the other puppet. The infants overwhelmingly preferred interacting with the helper puppet after the shows.
So, are we born knowing some aspects of right vs wrong or is it all learned. What is outlined above clearly indicates an inborn capacity to respond in ways that are considered right and helpful and kind and fair, etc. Some wonder if these capacities are due to their survival value in that if we are born with the capacity to help others even at our own risk this helps survival of our species. Now this was not demonstrated in the above studies but other studies have demonstrated the apparent automatic response to help even a stranger if they are in danger. My own possibly related experience occurred when I was driving on an expressway and noticed that a car just behind me had gone off an overpass and flipped over. I stopped and went back and found the car upside down and smoke coming from the engine. There was an infant hanging upside down from a carseat in the back seat. The infant was crying and moving all their extremities and did not seem sensitive to my touching their limbs, etc. and I decided to remove the infant away from the car. I then comforted the infant and after a couple minutes handed the infant to an EMS person who had arrived. I explained to this individual what I had done. I then left and went on with my trip. I do not recall deciding to help that infant as the infant seemed to need help and I was concerned that the car might explode. But there was no debating within myself, I just acted. Does this represent an automatic inherited need to respond to help others…even strangers? This is possibly confounded by the fact that I am a psychiatrist and yet I do not work with infants.
It seems unlikely that infants can learn the above positive behaviors by direct observation of others behaviors but maybe this is what happens. Regardless, there is evidence that as infants we know right from wrong and will act on this awareness. This is good news for our world if we choose to act in ways that we already know are right and don’t allow negative people to lure us into hurtful and uncaring behaviors. It seems like it is up to us to do the right thing and that we already know what is right and how to do it.
What do you think?
