14 ms·

Toddlers are harsh judges of moral character

242 points by rustoo 5y ago

_tom_ 5y ago
It's not just children. Non human primates have notions of fairness, as demonstrated in this hilarious video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo
mstipetic 5y ago
It kind of makes sense from an evolution perspective - as a toddler you're extremely vulnerable and you must avoid and chance of harm. It's better to overreact in the short term but survive in the long term
- varjag 5y ago
  Or it could be that groups with inherent moral standards survive better than otherwise. We don't know.
- dmurray 5y ago
  Also you're much more likely to benefit from someone else sharing than to have something worth sharing with others. Easy to be a Marxist when you're broke!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
black_13 5y ago
kderbyma 5y ago
virtues need not be taught to be known..though it helps
Fnoord 5y ago
That's a happy thought on the eve of Christmas, and IMO another one to include in Rutger Bregman's book De Meeste Mensen Deugen (Humankind: A Hopeful History [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humankind:_A_Hopeful_History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humankind:_A_Hopeful_History
eric4smith 5y ago
And they are usually right. As we grow up we are taught to lie, to not say the truth, and and worst to say “you look fine girl!”
- stephen_g 5y ago
  I don't know, my experience of toddlers is that while they are good judges of character (as the article says), they are often hypocrites themselves! Lying seems to come pretty naturally, as well as selfishness. Of course, their judgement of moral character is often distorted if it affects themselves. Deny them anything they want to do (like, no, we can't eat candy for dinner, or no, you can't touch the hot stove), and it can be basically as bad as the end of the world!
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >Lying seems to come pretty naturally, they tend not to be very good at it though (they may lie effortlessly but not believably), so not sure how natural something is if you suck at it.
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      They also suck at walking and talking so by that logic that's not natural as well ?
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I've never heard the phrase a natural walker or natural talker, but I have heard the phrase natural athlete, and for someone to be a natural athlete they have to be sort of good at athletic type things.
        AussieWog93 5y ago
        >I've never heard the phrase a natural walker or natural talker You should spend more time around parents with young kids, then!
causi 5y ago
One of my earliest memories is vehemently accusing my father of stealing because he borrowed the neighbor's ladder without asking. Of course he didn't ask because the neighbor wasn't home and they were good friends. We still laugh about that.
- arethuza 5y ago
  I remember our son when he was about 3 or 4 becoming irate in the baggage area of Geneva airport because some kids were sitting on the stationary luggage conveyor belts even though there were announcements telling you not to do that. He stormed off to protest to a deeply amused airport worker about this terrible situation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zerop 5y ago
Agree here. The initial personality and mindset development happens in childhood.. 1. How parents treat/behave with kids, among themselves and others are observed and adopted or disliked by kids. 2. Bullying in schools are another one. 3. How elder kids treat the younger one. 4. Beyond that, every kid has his/her own nature and character by birth. All Siblings are different despite having same parents, same upbringing, same environment at home.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  >All Siblings are different despite having same parents, same upbringing, same environment at home. But the attention varies, youngest gets the most attention in most families. And in many parts of the world, Sex matters too. Usually male child getting more resources.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    > But the attention varies, youngest gets the most attention in most families. Isn't the attention equally distributed because everybody is at one time 'youngest' ?
    - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
      I think that depends upon the number of children and interval between each child.
    - hackflip 5y ago
      If you have two kids, the first might be "youngest" for a couple of years and the second will be "youngest" for a lifetime.
      - the-dude 5y ago
        It is obvious I don't have kids. You are right, hadn't considered this.
  - candybar 5y ago
boffinism 5y ago
Remember that we stuff toddlers full of stories from books and telly and games where, to simplify, we present antagonists whose sole motivation is that they are 'baddies'. Culturally we push ideas of absolute moral character quite hard, and only add nuance later.
- leokennis 5y ago
  This is a reason I love watching Peppa Pig and so do kids. They present characters with obvious flaws, but those characters are not judged for it and also make up for it with good traits. Just like real people. Great example: https://youtu.be/zNzC_cNZVjY?t=88 https://youtu.be/zNzC_cNZVjY?t=88
- zpeti 5y ago
  1. This isn't just the adults deciding. Children are attracted to certain types of stories too. 2. It doesn't stop. And it's why CNN and Fox are successful. But it is how we as humans want to see the world. Suprisingly to some, neither democrats or republicans are actually evil, they just have different perspectives on the world, and probably have more in common than in disagreement.
  - tarsinge 5y ago
    Comprehension is different than approbation though. Maybe it becomes too philosophical but for me we can grow to appreciate the different perspective of others, what we have in common as human beings, and not judge them harshly because we are not sure we would do better in their shoes, but still actions can be evil.
  - ike77 5y ago
    Maybe for a lot of people the media they consume actually shape their preferences? But I would steer clear of generalizing, I think a lot of people have a strong preference for stories where the lines between what's moral and not are much more blurry and where you have reversal of preferences for various characters and where the main character is somehow sketchy. I think at the acclaimed Parasite for instance. It's relatively easy to elicit a strong emotion, but that doesn't make a story, just a news.
novia 5y ago
> But there’s a catch — it turns out that seeing an individual mistreating someone else does not always cause children to expect them to behave immorally in the future. The researchers saw this when they repeated their experiment, except this time the toddlers first witnessed a dog puppet mistreating a rabbit (as opposed to a fellow dog) before watching the dog share out a pair of toys. > In this scenario, toddlers gazed longer when the dog went on to make an unequal sharing decision, suggesting that they still expected the puppet to be fair.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  What's your point, it's followed by: > Only when the researchers ensured that the dog engaged in three sequential acts of bullying towards the rabbit did the children’s gaze patterns suggest that they no longer expected it to act fairly in the next social interaction.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
  This kind of study can't become very rigorous. Even the acting makes it impossible to be double blind. There's the possibility that the toddlers are staring because they just saw 'violence' - or because it's later in the day and this group is more tired.
pietrovismara 5y ago
- inkblotuniverse 5y ago
  I'll share with kith and kin, but not strangers.
  - pietrovismara 5y ago
    That's the point, toddlers don't really discriminate in this case. I'm not even sure if they have the same concept of "strangers" that you have. If we could all preserve this mindset, we would all be better of.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - csee 5y ago
      Natural and innate != good. Deception and tribalism, for example, are innate. You need to make the case for something on its own merits, otherwise it's just the naturalistic fallacy. I also take issue with your caricature of 'greed is good'. The non-strawman version just says that people following their own self-interest can often lead to more overall output, because people are more motivated if they're pursuing something in their own interest rather than someone else's. That works amazingly well when the price accounts for all the costs and benefits - you get lots and lots of output of a good thing - and less well when it does not.
      - pietrovismara 5y ago
        > Natural and innate != good. Deception and tribalism, for example, are innate. We still have deception and tribalism anyway. Wouldn't it be wiser to at least preserve also our better innate traits? Altruism is universally recognized as a positive trait, no matter what economist try to tell you. > can often lead to more overall output which translates in institutionalized theft, as we clearly see today when the output is not then fairly distributed but only goes up > people are more motivated if they're pursuing something in their own interest rather than someone else's That's your huge assumption. There are plenty of incredibly relevant scientists who never cashed on inventions/discoveries that changed the world. How do they fit in your scheme? We can also discuss how the USSR turned from a starving rural economy into an industrial world power in decades, based on a completely different incentive system than "my self-interest". Or how most of the poverty in the past century was solved by China and not by "greed first" countries. > That works amazingly well when the price accounts for all the costs and benefits - you get lots and lots of output of a good thing - and less well when it does not Another big assumption. I have countless examples of the market not self adjusting for the greater good. Greed has always existed troughout history. It never changed things for the better. What changed things was the scientific discoveries that led to the industrial revolution and social struggle. To say greed caused our modern lifestyle is like saying that drinking water causes death, since everyone who dies has drank water at least once.
Puts 5y ago
I would argue that perceptions of fairness and morale is not the same. In fact they can even be the opposite. When we grow up we learn that the world is not fair, and that even tough we where being mistreated we can not mistreat others to make it "fair". Morale is the ability to go against your gut feeling and do what is intellectually right. Children have a strong perception of fairness. If cookies are being handled out there better be a cookie coming your way too. If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  > If cookies are being handled out there better be a cookie coming your way too. If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath. Citation needed.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  > If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath. Really? If my boss came into the break room and handed out Christmas bonuses to everyone except me, I'm a psychopath if I get pissed off? Also, psychopaths don't react to stuff like this ... that's part of being a psychopath.
  - JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
    I imagine something more along the lines of somebody scratching an expensive car because of jealousy, but justified through some sense of unfairness.
  - Puts 5y ago
    Well, he certainly doesn't have to. There's no worldly force automatically granting you a bonus as well. But on the other hand there's no worldly force keeping you at your job either. But if you feel you can demand complete fairness, then everybody else on this planet can too so why don't you give a "bonus" to someone homeless who doesn't have anything – even tough you didn't get one from your boss? That is true morale because it requires strength to exclude yourself from the equation.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
I have kids. Children are pure of emotion. That's not helpful, because they lack nuance. It's also why militaries prefer the youngest they are allowed to recruit. When a young child is angry, they are consumed by it. There is no restraint. When they learn rules, they are binary about them. When they learn to lie, cheat, steal, they go hog wild with it. Yes, your angel will do this, too. This part is hilarious if you're careful to keep it in check.
- analog31 5y ago
  It's also because in an advanced economy, the older folks are busy with production, which funds the war. In less advanced economies, maybe not so much, but those economies also have an earlier transition to general purpose adulthood including employment and parenting. Also, children are quicker to replace. It takes only 12 years to produce a 12 year old soldier, and war-torn countries tend to have a skewed age distribution.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > It's also why militaries prefer the youngest they are allowed to recruit. Militaries recruit young adults primarily because they’re at peak physical shape but they haven’t settled into careers yet. It would be hard to build an effective military if we recruited a bunch of middle-aged men out of desk jobs and tried to get them back in young person shape. > When they learn rules, they are binary about them. When they learn to lie, cheat, steal, they go hog wild with it. Your post is also quite binary, without nuance. I also have kids and haven’t seen this unilateral sociopathy at a certain age. On the contrary, kids are relatively complex emotionally and are capable of empathy from a young age. That doesn’t mean they never test the limits, but they don’t (generally) turn into lie-cheat-steal machines like you’re suggesting, nor are they completely incapable of controlling their emotional impulses. Give kids a little more credit. You haven’t completely figured them out as an adult (or maybe you forgot how frustrating it was when overconfident adults assumed the worst of you and thought they had it all figured out)
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Exactly. There's a big difference between how much sleeping on rocks an 18yo can tolerate before their work performance degrades vs a 26yo who's sleeping on the same rocks. The other problem with older people is that once you stop spending your workday taking orders from a capricious bureaucracy (school) it's hard to get people to voluntarily go back. Draw whatever trope-ey parallels you want with working for an employer but private industry is very different from school and military in its level of seemingly capricious micromanagement. A bunch of 20 or 30-somethings who've been exposed to the realities of life and how dirty the world is are probably more likely to be able to deal with the more morally questionable aspects of military service but it's not worth the other tradeoffs of working with those demographics.
kashyapc 5y ago
On this topic, definitely check out the fascinating work of Michel Tomasello[1]. He's the foremost developmental and comparative psychologist. As I expected, his work is copiously cited in the papers[2][3] in the article. Tomasello did studies for over 25 years with human children and other primates on understanding what separates humans from the great apes ("joint agency" and "shared intentionality") and many other topics on developmental psychology. • • • In his recent book, "Becoming Human"[4], he summarizes his decades of research and proposes: ... a new framework for psychological growth between birth and seven years of age. He identifies eight pathways that starkly differentiate humans from their closest primate relatives: social cognition, communication, cultural learning, cooperative thinking, collaboration, prosociality, social norms, and moral identity. In each of these, great apes possess rudimentary abilities. But then, Tomasello argues, the maturation of humans’ evolved capacities for shared intentionality transform these abilities—through the new forms of sociocultural interaction they enable—into uniquely human cognition and sociality. The first step occurs around nine months, with the emergence of joint intentionality, exercised mostly with caregiving adults. The second step occurs around three years, with the emergence of collective intentionality involving both authoritative adults, who convey cultural knowledge, and coequal peers, who elicit collaboration and communication. Finally, by age six or seven, children become responsible for self-regulating their beliefs and actions so that they comport with cultural norms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tomasello https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tomasello [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389704/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389704/ [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461303/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461303/ [4] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248281 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248281
darepublic 5y ago
The study itself didn't seem very rigorous and judging by the threads here, for once I am among the minority who read the article
Moodles 5y ago
I often think, and find it amusing, that as adults we think we've grown out of many childish tendencies, but collectively we haven't. Our interactions are just a bit more complex, but fundamentally the same. In this case, it's very obvious: How often do you give your political party the benefit of the doubt, yet anything you hear or see from the one you disagree with, you immediately think of in the worse possible light? Or how often do you see one person at work do one or two stupid things and then ever since you just think they're an idiot and can't provide any value to you? We often decide we don't like some person, and it's very hard to change our views after that. I think we're childlike in other ways too. There was a documentary I saw once which followed some 6 year olds around a school. They got into exactly the same kind of silly drama us grownups do: love triangles, fights, lying, groupthink, etc. Exactly as grownups do. It was hilarious, frightening and enlightening. Sometimes we can break out of these immature tendencies of course, but it definitely requires maturity and mental energy, something I don't think anyone is capable of 100% of the time.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  At least in my social set, "toddlers and adults are about the same - except the adults mostly have filters [between their feelings and their words/actions] and the toddlers mostly don't" seems to be common wisdom.
- lanstin 5y ago
  This is why the best thing I ever did for my software career was be a stay at home dad for three years. If you can make your gaggle of kids keep making forward motion towards some arbitrary goal, you can do the same with a gaggle of software engineers. Judging what people aren't saying but are feeling; assessing hunger and irritation that rule out rational conversation for the time being; framing things in a way designed to get "yes," etc. etc. The learnings are infinitely useful. Plus of course, even tho my gaggle has grown up to opinionated young adults, we still seem to enjoy a warm and fulfilling connection which I enjoy quite as much as a refactoring that shrinks the code base. Also you learn the importance of self-mastery, of taking care to keep yourself in your rational side where you can provide the missing pieces, of support, creativity, steadfastness or flexibility, that the group needs for happy outcomes.
wirthjason 5y ago
I have a 2.75 yr old daughter. I’m amazed at the mental growth at this age. Anyone have good recommendations for pop science books on toddler psychology? Another post mentioned the author Michel Tomasello. I’m curious how punishment and corrective behavior is interpreted. Theres a lot of situations I don’t know how to handle. Recently my daughter has been spitting up juice, including on me, because she thinks it’s funny. When something like this happens I give her a light thump on the head with my finger and a stern “no, that’s bad”. But she doesn’t like it and starts crying. She then runs to her mom who then hugs her and says it will be OK. I feel like this is a lose-lose situation. She needs to learn this behavior isn’t acceptable but it makes me the bad guy and mommy the nice one.
- dqpb 5y ago
  I can’t imagine hitting my child on the head, even lightly. The messaging that sends is so wrong on so many levels. Besides which, they will likely end up hitting someone else on the head when they don’t like what they’re doing. But, aside from that, if you’re looking for a mental model for teaching children, I think Reinforcement Learning is highly applicable. If you consider their observation space, action space, and reward signals, you start to see that you have quite a lot of levers for helping them learn and grow.
  - dqpb 5y ago
    I guess I should have split this into two comments. Now I can't tell if the downvotes are from pro-hitters or anti-RL'ers
- metachris 5y ago
  Highly recommend Daniel Siegel: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/191925.Daniel_J_Siegel https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/191925.Daniel_J_Siegel
- audiometry 5y ago
  Don’t react. Sometimes if they don’t get a reaction they stop doing it, because it’s your reaction they seek.
vilhelm_s 5y ago
“Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy.” --G.K. Chesterton

242 points by rustoo 5y ago

It's not just children. Non human primates have notions of fairness, as demonstrated in this hilarious video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

mstipetic 5y ago

It kind of makes sense from an evolution perspective - as a toddler you're extremely vulnerable and you must avoid and chance of harm. It's better to overreact in the short term but survive in the long term

varjag 5y ago
Or it could be that groups with inherent moral standards survive better than otherwise. We don't know.
dmurray 5y ago
Also you're much more likely to benefit from someone else sharing than to have something worth sharing with others. Easy to be a Marxist when you're broke!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

black_13 5y ago

kderbyma 5y ago

virtues need not be taught to be known..though it helps

Fnoord 5y ago

That's a happy thought on the eve of Christmas, and IMO another one to include in Rutger Bregman's book De Meeste Mensen Deugen (Humankind: A Hopeful History [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humankind:_A_Hopeful_History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humankind:_A_Hopeful_History

eric4smith 5y ago

And they are usually right. As we grow up we are taught to lie, to not say the truth, and and worst to say “you look fine girl!”

stephen_g 5y ago
I don't know, my experience of toddlers is that while they are good judges of character (as the article says), they are often hypocrites themselves! Lying seems to come pretty naturally, as well as selfishness. Of course, their judgement of moral character is often distorted if it affects themselves. Deny them anything they want to do (like, no, we can't eat candy for dinner, or no, you can't touch the hot stove), and it can be basically as bad as the end of the world!
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >Lying seems to come pretty naturally, they tend not to be very good at it though (they may lie effortlessly but not believably), so not sure how natural something is if you suck at it.
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    They also suck at walking and talking so by that logic that's not natural as well ?
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      I've never heard the phrase a natural walker or natural talker, but I have heard the phrase natural athlete, and for someone to be a natural athlete they have to be sort of good at athletic type things.
      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        >I've never heard the phrase a natural walker or natural talker You should spend more time around parents with young kids, then!

causi 5y ago

One of my earliest memories is vehemently accusing my father of stealing because he borrowed the neighbor's ladder without asking. Of course he didn't ask because the neighbor wasn't home and they were good friends. We still laugh about that.

arethuza 5y ago
I remember our son when he was about 3 or 4 becoming irate in the baggage area of Geneva airport because some kids were sitting on the stationary luggage conveyor belts even though there were announcements telling you not to do that. He stormed off to protest to a deeply amused airport worker about this terrible situation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

zerop 5y ago

Agree here. The initial personality and mindset development happens in childhood.. 1. How parents treat/behave with kids, among themselves and others are observed and adopted or disliked by kids. 2. Bullying in schools are another one. 3. How elder kids treat the younger one. 4. Beyond that, every kid has his/her own nature and character by birth. All Siblings are different despite having same parents, same upbringing, same environment at home.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
>All Siblings are different despite having same parents, same upbringing, same environment at home. But the attention varies, youngest gets the most attention in most families. And in many parts of the world, Sex matters too. Usually male child getting more resources.
- the-dude 5y ago
  > But the attention varies, youngest gets the most attention in most families. Isn't the attention equally distributed because everybody is at one time 'youngest' ?
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    I think that depends upon the number of children and interval between each child.
  - hackflip 5y ago
    If you have two kids, the first might be "youngest" for a couple of years and the second will be "youngest" for a lifetime.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      It is obvious I don't have kids. You are right, hadn't considered this.
- candybar 5y ago

boffinism 5y ago

Remember that we stuff toddlers full of stories from books and telly and games where, to simplify, we present antagonists whose sole motivation is that they are 'baddies'. Culturally we push ideas of absolute moral character quite hard, and only add nuance later.

leokennis 5y ago
This is a reason I love watching Peppa Pig and so do kids. They present characters with obvious flaws, but those characters are not judged for it and also make up for it with good traits. Just like real people. Great example: https://youtu.be/zNzC_cNZVjY?t=88 https://youtu.be/zNzC_cNZVjY?t=88
zpeti 5y ago
1. This isn't just the adults deciding. Children are attracted to certain types of stories too. 2. It doesn't stop. And it's why CNN and Fox are successful. But it is how we as humans want to see the world. Suprisingly to some, neither democrats or republicans are actually evil, they just have different perspectives on the world, and probably have more in common than in disagreement.
- tarsinge 5y ago
  Comprehension is different than approbation though. Maybe it becomes too philosophical but for me we can grow to appreciate the different perspective of others, what we have in common as human beings, and not judge them harshly because we are not sure we would do better in their shoes, but still actions can be evil.
- ike77 5y ago
  Maybe for a lot of people the media they consume actually shape their preferences? But I would steer clear of generalizing, I think a lot of people have a strong preference for stories where the lines between what's moral and not are much more blurry and where you have reversal of preferences for various characters and where the main character is somehow sketchy. I think at the acclaimed Parasite for instance. It's relatively easy to elicit a strong emotion, but that doesn't make a story, just a news.

novia 5y ago

> But there’s a catch — it turns out that seeing an individual mistreating someone else does not always cause children to expect them to behave immorally in the future. The researchers saw this when they repeated their experiment, except this time the toddlers first witnessed a dog puppet mistreating a rabbit (as opposed to a fellow dog) before watching the dog share out a pair of toys. > In this scenario, toddlers gazed longer when the dog went on to make an unequal sharing decision, suggesting that they still expected the puppet to be fair.

mrweasel 5y ago
What's your point, it's followed by: > Only when the researchers ensured that the dog engaged in three sequential acts of bullying towards the rabbit did the children’s gaze patterns suggest that they no longer expected it to act fairly in the next social interaction.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
This kind of study can't become very rigorous. Even the acting makes it impossible to be double blind. There's the possibility that the toddlers are staring because they just saw 'violence' - or because it's later in the day and this group is more tired.

pietrovismara 5y ago

inkblotuniverse 5y ago
I'll share with kith and kin, but not strangers.
- pietrovismara 5y ago
  That's the point, toddlers don't really discriminate in this case. I'm not even sure if they have the same concept of "strangers" that you have. If we could all preserve this mindset, we would all be better of.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - csee 5y ago
    Natural and innate != good. Deception and tribalism, for example, are innate. You need to make the case for something on its own merits, otherwise it's just the naturalistic fallacy. I also take issue with your caricature of 'greed is good'. The non-strawman version just says that people following their own self-interest can often lead to more overall output, because people are more motivated if they're pursuing something in their own interest rather than someone else's. That works amazingly well when the price accounts for all the costs and benefits - you get lots and lots of output of a good thing - and less well when it does not.
    - pietrovismara 5y ago
      > Natural and innate != good. Deception and tribalism, for example, are innate. We still have deception and tribalism anyway. Wouldn't it be wiser to at least preserve also our better innate traits? Altruism is universally recognized as a positive trait, no matter what economist try to tell you. > can often lead to more overall output which translates in institutionalized theft, as we clearly see today when the output is not then fairly distributed but only goes up > people are more motivated if they're pursuing something in their own interest rather than someone else's That's your huge assumption. There are plenty of incredibly relevant scientists who never cashed on inventions/discoveries that changed the world. How do they fit in your scheme? We can also discuss how the USSR turned from a starving rural economy into an industrial world power in decades, based on a completely different incentive system than "my self-interest". Or how most of the poverty in the past century was solved by China and not by "greed first" countries. > That works amazingly well when the price accounts for all the costs and benefits - you get lots and lots of output of a good thing - and less well when it does not Another big assumption. I have countless examples of the market not self adjusting for the greater good. Greed has always existed troughout history. It never changed things for the better. What changed things was the scientific discoveries that led to the industrial revolution and social struggle. To say greed caused our modern lifestyle is like saying that drinking water causes death, since everyone who dies has drank water at least once.

Puts 5y ago

I would argue that perceptions of fairness and morale is not the same. In fact they can even be the opposite. When we grow up we learn that the world is not fair, and that even tough we where being mistreated we can not mistreat others to make it "fair". Morale is the ability to go against your gut feeling and do what is intellectually right. Children have a strong perception of fairness. If cookies are being handled out there better be a cookie coming your way too. If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago
> If cookies are being handled out there better be a cookie coming your way too. If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath. Citation needed.
Ensorceled 5y ago
> If you keep this mentality going into adulthood you are most likely a psychopath. Really? If my boss came into the break room and handed out Christmas bonuses to everyone except me, I'm a psychopath if I get pissed off? Also, psychopaths don't react to stuff like this ... that's part of being a psychopath.
- JoeyJoJoJr 5y ago
  I imagine something more along the lines of somebody scratching an expensive car because of jealousy, but justified through some sense of unfairness.
- Puts 5y ago
  Well, he certainly doesn't have to. There's no worldly force automatically granting you a bonus as well. But on the other hand there's no worldly force keeping you at your job either. But if you feel you can demand complete fairness, then everybody else on this planet can too so why don't you give a "bonus" to someone homeless who doesn't have anything – even tough you didn't get one from your boss? That is true morale because it requires strength to exclude yourself from the equation.

CapitalistCartr 5y ago

I have kids. Children are pure of emotion. That's not helpful, because they lack nuance. It's also why militaries prefer the youngest they are allowed to recruit. When a young child is angry, they are consumed by it. There is no restraint. When they learn rules, they are binary about them. When they learn to lie, cheat, steal, they go hog wild with it. Yes, your angel will do this, too. This part is hilarious if you're careful to keep it in check.

analog31 5y ago
It's also because in an advanced economy, the older folks are busy with production, which funds the war. In less advanced economies, maybe not so much, but those economies also have an earlier transition to general purpose adulthood including employment and parenting. Also, children are quicker to replace. It takes only 12 years to produce a 12 year old soldier, and war-torn countries tend to have a skewed age distribution.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It's also why militaries prefer the youngest they are allowed to recruit. Militaries recruit young adults primarily because they’re at peak physical shape but they haven’t settled into careers yet. It would be hard to build an effective military if we recruited a bunch of middle-aged men out of desk jobs and tried to get them back in young person shape. > When they learn rules, they are binary about them. When they learn to lie, cheat, steal, they go hog wild with it. Your post is also quite binary, without nuance. I also have kids and haven’t seen this unilateral sociopathy at a certain age. On the contrary, kids are relatively complex emotionally and are capable of empathy from a young age. That doesn’t mean they never test the limits, but they don’t (generally) turn into lie-cheat-steal machines like you’re suggesting, nor are they completely incapable of controlling their emotional impulses. Give kids a little more credit. You haven’t completely figured them out as an adult (or maybe you forgot how frustrating it was when overconfident adults assumed the worst of you and thought they had it all figured out)
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Exactly. There's a big difference between how much sleeping on rocks an 18yo can tolerate before their work performance degrades vs a 26yo who's sleeping on the same rocks. The other problem with older people is that once you stop spending your workday taking orders from a capricious bureaucracy (school) it's hard to get people to voluntarily go back. Draw whatever trope-ey parallels you want with working for an employer but private industry is very different from school and military in its level of seemingly capricious micromanagement. A bunch of 20 or 30-somethings who've been exposed to the realities of life and how dirty the world is are probably more likely to be able to deal with the more morally questionable aspects of military service but it's not worth the other tradeoffs of working with those demographics.

kashyapc 5y ago

On this topic, definitely check out the fascinating work of Michel Tomasello[1]. He's the foremost developmental and comparative psychologist. As I expected, his work is copiously cited in the papers[2][3] in the article. Tomasello did studies for over 25 years with human children and other primates on understanding what separates humans from the great apes ("joint agency" and "shared intentionality") and many other topics on developmental psychology. • • • In his recent book, "Becoming Human"[4], he summarizes his decades of research and proposes: ... a new framework for psychological growth between birth and seven years of age. He identifies eight pathways that starkly differentiate humans from their closest primate relatives: social cognition, communication, cultural learning, cooperative thinking, collaboration, prosociality, social norms, and moral identity. In each of these, great apes possess rudimentary abilities. But then, Tomasello argues, the maturation of humans’ evolved capacities for shared intentionality transform these abilities—through the new forms of sociocultural interaction they enable—into uniquely human cognition and sociality. The first step occurs around nine months, with the emergence of joint intentionality, exercised mostly with caregiving adults. The second step occurs around three years, with the emergence of collective intentionality involving both authoritative adults, who convey cultural knowledge, and coequal peers, who elicit collaboration and communication. Finally, by age six or seven, children become responsible for self-regulating their beliefs and actions so that they comport with cultural norms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tomasello https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tomasello [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389704/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389704/ [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461303/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5461303/ [4] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248281 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248281

darepublic 5y ago

The study itself didn't seem very rigorous and judging by the threads here, for once I am among the minority who read the article

Moodles 5y ago

I often think, and find it amusing, that as adults we think we've grown out of many childish tendencies, but collectively we haven't. Our interactions are just a bit more complex, but fundamentally the same. In this case, it's very obvious: How often do you give your political party the benefit of the doubt, yet anything you hear or see from the one you disagree with, you immediately think of in the worse possible light? Or how often do you see one person at work do one or two stupid things and then ever since you just think they're an idiot and can't provide any value to you? We often decide we don't like some person, and it's very hard to change our views after that. I think we're childlike in other ways too. There was a documentary I saw once which followed some 6 year olds around a school. They got into exactly the same kind of silly drama us grownups do: love triangles, fights, lying, groupthink, etc. Exactly as grownups do. It was hilarious, frightening and enlightening. Sometimes we can break out of these immature tendencies of course, but it definitely requires maturity and mental energy, something I don't think anyone is capable of 100% of the time.

bell-cot 5y ago
At least in my social set, "toddlers and adults are about the same - except the adults mostly have filters [between their feelings and their words/actions] and the toddlers mostly don't" seems to be common wisdom.
lanstin 5y ago
This is why the best thing I ever did for my software career was be a stay at home dad for three years. If you can make your gaggle of kids keep making forward motion towards some arbitrary goal, you can do the same with a gaggle of software engineers. Judging what people aren't saying but are feeling; assessing hunger and irritation that rule out rational conversation for the time being; framing things in a way designed to get "yes," etc. etc. The learnings are infinitely useful. Plus of course, even tho my gaggle has grown up to opinionated young adults, we still seem to enjoy a warm and fulfilling connection which I enjoy quite as much as a refactoring that shrinks the code base. Also you learn the importance of self-mastery, of taking care to keep yourself in your rational side where you can provide the missing pieces, of support, creativity, steadfastness or flexibility, that the group needs for happy outcomes.

wirthjason 5y ago

I have a 2.75 yr old daughter. I’m amazed at the mental growth at this age. Anyone have good recommendations for pop science books on toddler psychology? Another post mentioned the author Michel Tomasello. I’m curious how punishment and corrective behavior is interpreted. Theres a lot of situations I don’t know how to handle. Recently my daughter has been spitting up juice, including on me, because she thinks it’s funny. When something like this happens I give her a light thump on the head with my finger and a stern “no, that’s bad”. But she doesn’t like it and starts crying. She then runs to her mom who then hugs her and says it will be OK. I feel like this is a lose-lose situation. She needs to learn this behavior isn’t acceptable but it makes me the bad guy and mommy the nice one.

dqpb 5y ago
I can’t imagine hitting my child on the head, even lightly. The messaging that sends is so wrong on so many levels. Besides which, they will likely end up hitting someone else on the head when they don’t like what they’re doing. But, aside from that, if you’re looking for a mental model for teaching children, I think Reinforcement Learning is highly applicable. If you consider their observation space, action space, and reward signals, you start to see that you have quite a lot of levers for helping them learn and grow.
- dqpb 5y ago
  I guess I should have split this into two comments. Now I can't tell if the downvotes are from pro-hitters or anti-RL'ers
metachris 5y ago
Highly recommend Daniel Siegel: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/191925.Daniel_J_Siegel https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/191925.Daniel_J_Siegel
audiometry 5y ago
Don’t react. Sometimes if they don’t get a reaction they stop doing it, because it’s your reaction they seek.

vilhelm_s 5y ago

“Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy.” --G.K. Chesterton