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Predicting Social Behavior By Sound & Surface Appearance In Infancy, Ashley Lyons

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Our naïve theory of social behavior assumes that the positive and negative actions of others are caused by some underlying social disposition. Furthermore, adults automatically infer such traits in advance based upon whatever observable, even superficial, properties are available (e.g., how someone looks or sounds). The goal of the current study is to explore the developmental origins of this bias. We tested whether 12-month-old infants automatically infer a character’s social disposition (i.e., whether they ‘help’ or ‘hinder’ another character’s goal) based upon the superficial properties they display. Infants were habituated to two characters that possessed surface properties that were rated …