Once Helpful, Always Helpful? Infants’ Expectations About Helping and Hindering Behavior Across Scenarios

The present work examined 16 to 18 month-olds’abilities to generalize a person’s tendency to help or hinder across multiple scenarios. Infants saw three familiarization events where an agent consistently helped or hindered another agent. In test, infants saw two test trials (consistent or inconsistent with the behavior in familiarization) in a new scenario. Experiment 1 showed that infants tracked a person’s helping behavior across scenarios and expected the person to be helpful again in the future. However, generalizing a person’s tendency to hinder proved more challenging. Experiment 2 replicated the positive results in Experiment 1 and showed that with the stronger cues of hindering intent, tracking hindering behavior across events appeared easier for infants.

Elizabeth Goldman is Psychology PhD student who works in the Infant Development Lab. Her research
primarily focuses on children’s understanding of prosocial (helping) behavior. This project looks at whether
children expect a person’s helping or hindering behavior to continue and carryover to other situations.

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