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The experiments this op-ed describes are really neat. I especially like the one that demonstrates the importance of "practice what you preach." Here's another
by jawns 13y ago
The experiments this op-ed describes are really neat. I especially like the one that demonstrates the importance of "practice what you preach."
Here's another cool experiment related to social/moral development, which you can perform on your own kid:
Have two grown-up friends each show your baby a toy. The first friend should offer the toy to your kid but then retract the offer and keep the toy to himself. The second friend should offer the toy to your kid but "accidentally" drop it out of reach.
Now, give your baby a different toy, and then prompt her to share it with one of the friends.
Your baby is very likely to share it with the friend who dropped the toy, rather than the one who withdrew the toy.
The above experiment is based on a 2010 study involving 21-month-olds. It found that two-thirds of the kids shared with the person who dropped the toy -- and the other third kept the toy to themselves. Not a single one shared with the person who offered the toy then retracted the offer. (I talk about this more in "Experimenting With Babies" http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com)
Not only is this fascinating because it shows that babies act preferentially toward people who are kind to them ... but it holds true EVEN IF the person who initiates a kind act is unable to complete it, but demonstrates the proper intent. Think about the complexity of the cognitive processes that are going on in that evaluation. It's amazing!
- cstavish 13y agoWho would have thought that 21-month-olds are predisposed to Kantian ethics?
- fit2rule 13y agoPhilosophy: how does it work? Hint: its true even if babies haven't figured it out yet.
- tel 13y agoWell, should you take a cultural relativist POV then there's nothing "true" about Kantian ethics—it's a choice of values. It's interesting to see 21mo behavior selecting for those values. If you take the deontological view then this is still a fairly complex behavior to execute. To consider whether this sort of judgement is one that should be fairly placed on the 21mo if it did the same is a challenging mental task. So, perhaps babies are predisposed to heuristics which favor the categorical imperative. That'd be interesting and certainly worth surprise.
- pekk 13y agoMany contradictory views are all "philosophy." It's rarely obvious which view is true, if any are.
- jessedhillon 13y agoOr could you say they're enacting a tit-for-tat strategy?
- benmathes 13y agoGet back to traveling.
- jessedhillon 13y agoInside jokes, or humor of any kind, have no place on HN, Ben. May you be stripped of all your imaginary internet fun points, so that you learn not to be such a light-hearted and well-adjusted individual.
- jcampbell1 13y agoI don't understand this at all. At 21 months, a toddler can walk and talk, and you can play keep away with them for fun. I don't know what it means to drop a toy out of reach. Do you drop it on a high counter or something?
- jawns 13y agoIn the original experiment -- see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094 for the abstract -- the toddlers stood on one side of a slanted table, so that anything placed on the table would roll down to the other side, where the adult actresses were. Presumably, the toddlers were not able to walk around the table. One way to replicate this at home, albeit imperfectly, is to place your toddler in a high chair, so that if you drop the toy on the floor, she is unable to reach it.
- hyp0 13y agoI wonder if they controlled the effect of the actresses own response. Although they might be excellent actresses, being mean to a baby is probably going to make you feel pretty rotten, at a level it might be hard to control, and the baby could be picking up on that. Animals can pick up subtle cues that are not apparent to adults; I'd be amazed if babies weren't at least as good. I'm thinking of Clever Hans http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
- saraid216 13y agoBoth actions seem to qualify as "mean to a baby" to me. Assuming the actresses agreed with me, this would cancel out the variable.
- gohrt 13y agoPoint is, the whole gift giving/dropping/witholding might be a red herring, and perhaps the same results could be replicated by having both people give a toy to a baby, but one acting scary and mean. And perhaps if two mannequins went through the same giving/dropping/witholding experiment, the result would not be observed. And perhaps if a smiling actress stole the toy, while a scowling actress dropped the toy, the affect would be reversed.
- mkoryak 13y agoThis book looks awesome. Grabbing one tonight thanks for letting me know about it!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gohrt 13y agoThat book has interesting experiments, but suffers psychology's common problem (especially baby psychology): massively over-extending the experimental data into unsupportable conclusions that ignore loads of confounding factors. Example, quoted from the website: """ The babies in the unjustified group spent more time looking at the adult's discordant expression and exhibited more checking behavior. Additionally, the babies' facial expressions only displayed empathy for the adult when a negative emotional response fit the scenario. The takeaway: Parents, take note: Your toddler can see through your "stiff upper lip" routine. """ The "takeaway" is completely unsupported. In no way does the experiment suggest that hiding pain is useless. For one thing, "stiff upper lip" (aka "faked neutrality") is different from faked happiness. For two, the experimental methodology only applies to cases where the baby knows that the experience's standard emotional response. That applies to hammer strikes on a finger, but not something like divorce or losing a job. For three, "spent more time looking at the adult's discordant expression" shows that the babies learn from their parents reactions, as they expend effort to understand counterintuitive behavior. "Counterintuitive" is not the same as "fake" or "wrong". So the "takeway" may in fact be the opposite of what the data suggests!
- skj 13y agoThanks, my thoughts exactly. Coming from a machine learning background, I am often shocked at the quality of experiments in psychology and even economics. I think the reason may be because in machine learning, you describe your algorithm and experiment exactly. If someone can use the same algorithm and devise an experiment to disprove your results, you look like a fool. With softer sciences, maybe people just say, "then you obviously didn't do it right!" and there is no code to point at. I like to think that in medicine they know how to do things properly, since there is so much regulation and money on the line.
- snowwrestler 13y agoIn machine learning you are implementing known algorithms on fully understood systems. Studies of humans (medical, psychological, economic, etc) are attempting to discover unknown algorithms on unknown, extremely complex systems. The quality will always seem lower than engineering studies because scientists don't know what they don't know.