Infants Display Ability to Make Inferences about Social Relationships

A study on infant cognition reveals that babies as old as nine months can make inferences about social relationships by observing the likes and dislikes of people around them.

Researchers at the University of Chicago claim that babies display an ability to differentiate friends from foe even before they develop their language skills or gain information about social structures. This new finding throws light on human's earliest understanding of the social world surrounding them.

"This is some of the first evidence that young infants are tracking other people's social relationships," said Amanda L. Woodward, the William S. Gray Professor of Psychology and a co-author of the study.

To prove the hypothesis, a study was conducted on 64 nine-month old babies. They were randomly divided into groups. These groups were shown videos in which two adults eat two different kinds of food and react either in a positive or negative manner to the food they eat. In some videos both the adults share the same reaction. In the video with positive interaction, the adults greet each other with smiles and in friendly voices say Hi!. In the negative video, the adults turn away from each other and interact in an unfriendly tone.

"We depicted evaluations of food because food may provide particularly salient social information," said co-author Katherine D. Kinzler, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Psychology. "Eating with family and friends is inherently social, and so infants might be particularly inclined to use eating behaviors to make inferences about social relationships."  

They further investigated whether or not the nine-month-old infants associated the reaction of the adults to each food to the social relationships.  The researchers looked at the infants' response to the videos by measuring the time the infant took to focus on a still screen once the video was over. The infants' attention was coded by two sets of trained observers.

Prior to this, researchers had discovered that the duration of the infants' gaze is linked to how common or surprising a situation is to them. If the infant sees something unexpected he/she gazes at it longer.

After decoding the infants' attention, it was seen that infants were surprised when they saw the adults who liked the same food behave in a negative manner and were also surprised to see adults who disliked the food actually behave like friends.

This study suggests that babies at an early age can discern that adults who agree with each other behave in a friendly manner. The infants predicted that adults who shared the same reaction to the two foods were more likely to be friends.

"This study raises questions on how babies think about who gets along and who doesn't," said lead author Zoe Liberman, a UChicago doctoral student in psychology. "Parents will be interested to know that babies are keeping track of what's going on in the world around them and are making inferences about social interactions that we previously were not aware of before this study."

The researchers plan to focus on various cues that assist infants in making such social inferences. The study was published online by Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.