Not Like Me = Bad: Infants Prefer Those Who Harm Dissimilar Others

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 589 - 594
• Main Authors: Hamlin, J. Kiley, Mahajan, Neha, Liberman, Zoe, Wynn, Karen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.04.2013; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Attitudes; Attributes; Babies; Behavior; Child Development; Child psychology; Children; Choice Behavior; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive psychology; Dogs; Friendship; Humans; Identification; Infancy; Infant; Infants; Judgement; Judgment; Perceptual similarity; Preferences; Prejudice; Psychological assessment; Psychological attitudes; Puppets; Research Report; Social attitudes; Social cognition; Social Identification; Social Perception; Social psychology; prejudice; preferences; social cognition; infant development
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797612457785

Adults tend to like individuals who are similar to themselves, and a growing body of recent research suggests that even infants and young children prefer individuals who share their attributes or personal tastes over those who do not. In this study, we examined the nature and development of attitudes toward similar and dissimilar others in human infancy. Across two experiments with combined samples of more than 200 infant participants, we found that 9- and 14-month-old infants prefer individuals who treat similar others well and treat dissimilar others poorly. A developmental trend was observed, such that 14-month-olds' responses were more robust than were 9-month-olds'. These findings suggest that the identification of common and contrasting personal attributes influences social attitudes and judgments in powerful ways, even very early in life.