By: Stephanie Pappas
Published: 02/05/2015 10:15 AM EST on LiveScience
Babies who are just over a year old already comprehend complex social interactions — they understand what other people know and don’t know, and expect them to behave accordingly, new research shows.
In the new study, 13-month-olds who watched a puppet show in which one character witnessed another behaving badly expected the witness to shun the villain. But the babies did not expect a shunning if the villain acted badly when the witness wasn’t looking.
Even at this young age, the babies were mostly very intrigued by the drama, said Yuyan Luo a psychologist at the University of Missouri and co-author of the study.
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The study, published online Jan. 28 in the journal Psychological Science, is among the first to examine young babies’ responses to complicated social interactions, particularly false beliefs that might arise during social situations. These are talents that help humans navigate the social world as they get older, Choi said.
Now, the researchers are studying how babies react when a character does something nice rather than mean. The scientists also want to research how babies expect witnesses to treat victims.
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