(Press-News.org) CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Psychologists at Harvard University have found that infants less than one year old understand social dominance and use relative size to predict who will prevail when two individuals' goals conflict. The finding is presented this week in the journal Science.
Lead author Lotte Thomsen says the work suggests we may be born with -- or develop at a very early age -- some understanding of social dominance and how it relates to relative size, a correlation ubiquitous across human cultures and the animal kingdom. This knowledge may help infants face the formidable challenge of learning the structure of their social environment, specifying ways of recognizing who is socially dominant in their particular culture.
"Traditional kings and chieftains sit on large, elevated thrones and wear elaborate crowns or robes that make them look bigger than they really are, and subordinates often bow or kneel to show respect to superior humans and gods," says Thomsen, a research fellow in Harvard's Department of Psychology and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Copenhagen. "Many animals, like birds and cats, will puff themselves up to look physically larger to an adversary, and prostrate themselves to demonstrate submission, like dogs do. Our work suggests that even with limited socialization, preverbal human infants may understand such displays."
Thomsen and colleagues at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles, studied the reactions of infants ranging from 8 to 16 months old as they watched videos of interactions between cartoon figures of various sizes.
"Since preverbal infants can't be interviewed, their experiences and expectations must be assessed by their behavior," Thomsen says. "Infants tend to watch longer when something surprises them. So we can test hypotheses about what they expect by measuring how long they look at scenarios that either violate or confirm their expectations."
The researchers showed infants videos depicting a large and a small block with eyes and mouth bouncing across a stage in opposite directions. Next, infants watched the two blocks meet in the middle, impeding one another's progress. They then saw either the large or the small block bow and step aside, deferring to the other.
"As predicted by our theory, the infants watched much longer when a large agent yielded to a smaller one," Thomsen says. On average, the babies watched this unexpected outcome for 20 seconds, compared to just 12 seconds when a smaller character made way for a larger one.
In a follow-up experiment, Thomsen and her co-authors found that eight-month-old infants failed to grasp the significance of the larger block deferring to the smaller one. But those who were 10 to 16 months old consistently demonstrated surprise at depictions of a larger individual yielding to a smaller one, suggesting that this conceptual understanding develops between 8 and 10 months of age.
Two other follow-ups showed that infants' reactions were not simply caused by the expectation that smaller individuals tend to fall over in general, including in situations that do not involve conflicting goals.
"Understanding what makes humans' rich conceptual repertoire possible is one of the formidable challenges of cognitive science," says co-author Susan Carey, the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Psychology at Harvard. "Part of meeting this challenge is specifying the initial state: What representational resources are infants born with that enable further learning? Our work shows that apparently, infants come prepared to understand abstract aspects of their social world."
In recent decades, scientists have learned that the infant mind creates abstract representations of intuitive physics, psychology, and mathematics. It has also been shown that young infants represent aspects of the social world, such as tracking whether other agents help or hinder third parties. These representations constitute part of what babies need in order to understand collaboration and cooperation in the world.
"The studies we report here are the first to show that young infants also understand events where agents have conflicting goals, and have ways of predicting which of two agents will prevail," Carey says.
INFORMATION:
Thomsen and Carey's co-authors on the Science paper are Willem E. Frankenhuis at UCLA and McCaila Ingold-Smith at Harvard. Their work was sponsored by Harvard, NIH, the Winkler Foundation, and the National Danish Science Foundation.
Infants ascribe social dominance to larger individuals
We may be born with some grasp of social hierarchy and how it relates to physical size
2011-01-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Staying 1 strep ahead
2011-01-28
New research provides the first detailed genetic picture of an evolutionary war between Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria and the vaccines and antibiotics used against it over recent decades. Large-scale genome sequencing reveals patterns of adaptation and the spread of a drug-resistant lineage of the S. pneumoniae bacteria.
The study unmasks the genetic events by which bacteria such as S. pneumoniae respond rapidly to new antibiotics and vaccines. The team suggest that knowing the enemy better could improve infection control measures.
S. pneumoniae is responsible ...
Disparities in physician demographics linked to patient disparities
2011-01-28
Significant disparities exist between the race of kidney disease patients and that of the physicians who will care for them, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The results suggest that efforts are needed to increase minority recruitment into kidney specialty programs to more closely balance the racial background of physicians and patients.
Kidney disease disproportionately affects African Americans: 32% of dialysis patients are African Americans, who make up only 13% of the US population. ...
High school biology teachers reluctant to endorse evolution in class
2011-01-28
The majority of public high school biology teachers are not strong classroom advocates of evolutionary biology, despite 40 years of court cases that have ruled teaching creationism or intelligent design violates the Constitution, according to Penn State political scientists. A mandatory undergraduate course in evolutionary biology for prospective teachers, and frequent refresher courses for current teachers, may be part of the solution, they say.
"Considerable research suggests that supporters of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself are losing battles in America's ...
Warming North Atlantic water tied to heating Arctic, according to new study
2011-01-28
The temperatures of North Atlantic Ocean water flowing north into the Arctic Ocean adjacent to Greenland -- the warmest water in at least 2,000 years -- are likely related to the amplification of global warming in the Arctic, says a new international study involving the University of Colorado Boulder.
Led by Robert Spielhagen of the Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Literature in Mainz, Germany, the study showed that water from the Fram Strait that runs between Greenland and Svalbard -- an archipelago constituting the northernmost part of Norway -- has warmed roughly ...
Study reveals how fusion protein triggers cancer
2011-01-28
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — What happens when two proteins join together? In this case, they become like a power couple, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
API2 and MALT1 are two proteins that become fused together in a subset of lymphomas. The API2 part of the fusion connects with an enzyme called NIK. When it does, MALT1 comes in for the kill, splitting NIK in two, a process called cleavage.
The result? NIK is stronger than ever. It sheds its "conscience" by removing a regulatory region of the enzyme that forces NIK to behave and self-destruct. Consequently, ...
Expert questions Lansley's key arguments for NHS reform
2011-01-28
England's health secretary Andrew Lansley has said that his reforms for the NHS are needed because the country's health outcomes are among the poorest in Europe. But in an article published on bmj.com today, John Appleby, Chief Economist at the King's Fund, reviews the data and finds the UK in better health than Lansley suggests.
It has been claimed that despite spending the same on health care, we suffer twice the rate of deaths from heart disease than France, says Appleby.
The latter is true, but what this claim doesn't show is that the UK has actually had the largest ...
Marriage is good for physical and mental health
2011-01-28
The 'smug marrieds' may have good reason to feel pleased with themselves as experts today confirm that long-term committed relationships are good for mental and physical health and this benefit increases over time.
In an editorial published by student BMJ, David and John Gallacher from Cardiff University say that on average married people live longer. They say that women in committed relationships have better mental health, while men in committed relationships have better physical health, and they conclude that "on balance it probably is worth making the effort."
Men's ...
Men more likely to stick with girlfriends who sleep with other women than other men
2011-01-28
AUSTIN, Texas—Men are more than twice as likely to continue dating a girlfriend who has cheated on them with another woman than one who has cheated with another man, according to new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist.
Women show the opposite pattern. They are more likely to continue dating a man who has had a heterosexual affair than one who has had a homosexual affair.
The study, published last month in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, provides new insight into the psychological adaptations behind men's desire for a variety ...
New transistor for plastic electronics exhibits the best of both worlds
2011-01-28
In the quest to develop flexible plastic electronics, one of the stumbling blocks has been creating transistors with enough stability for them to function in a variety of environments while still maintaining the current needed to power the devices. Online in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology describe a new method of combining top-gate organic field-effect transistors with a bilayer gate insulator. This allows the transistor to perform with incredible stability while exhibiting good current performance. In addition, the ...
Caltech geobiologists uncover links between ancient climate change and mass extinction
2011-01-28
PASADENA, Calif.—About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history—the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate.
"While it's been known for a long time that the mass extinction is intimately tied to climate change, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to go to their treat. Why do some animals learn to interact with the bell instead?
Call for Young Editorial Board members at Current Molecular Pharmacology
MSU team develops scalable climate solutions for agricultural carbon markets
Playing an instrument may protect against cognitive aging
UNM study finds link between Grand Canyon landslide and Meteor Crater impact
Ultra-hot Jupiter’s death spiral could reveal stellar secrets
You only get one brain! The best helmet material for protecting your noggin
Neurodegeneration and stroke after GLP-1RAs in diabetes and obesity
Pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization trends by race and ethnicity, 2020-2023
Research spotlight: New genetic roadmap offers insights into obesity and diabetes
Fred Hutch leads new Vanguard Study for Cancer Screening Research Network
‘Mismatched’ transplants now safe, effective for blood cancer patients, study finds
New research helps narrow down uncertainties in near-term precipitation projections for the Asian Water Tower
AI tool accurately detects tumor location on breast MRI
Researchers use OCT imaging to uncover how the fallopian tube transports embryos
PolyU secures RGC theme-based research scheme funding to develop cost-effective and sustainable Co-GenAI model
Van Andel Institute scientists develop technique for high-resolution single cell epigenetic analysis
The Lundquist Institute wins multi-year NIH grant exceeding $11 million to transform diagnosis and treatment of deadly mucormycosis
Review suggests ending adult boosters for tetanus, diphtheria
ESMT Berlin welcomes Rebecca Schaumberg to faculty
Blocking a little-known protein may offer new hope for devastating lung disease
Medieval medicine was smarter than you think – and weirdly similar to TikTok trends
FAU receives NIH grant to investigate amphetamine addiction
Realizing on-site carbon nanotube photo-thermoelectric imaging
Most of us love memes. But are they a form of comics?
Novel biosensor allows real-time monitoring of sucrose uptake in plants
Korea University researchers reveal revealing how WEE1 drives cancer resistance to immunotherapy
Pusan National University researchers develop breakthrough deep learning model that enhances handheld 3D medical imaging
SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology demonstrate research impact with 2024 impact factors
Disease-causing bacteria can deal with stink as long as they get a meal
[Press-News.org] Infants ascribe social dominance to larger individualsWe may be born with some grasp of social hierarchy and how it relates to physical size