3-Month-Old Observation

The present study done by J. Kiley Hamlin et al,, in their paper titled “Three-month-olds show a negativity bias in their social evaluations” seeks to answer whether older infants look longer at an individual they later choose to interact with, as this would indicate visual preferences as well as social preference. In this study, it is evident that there is an agreement between preferential looking and preferential reaching methods in the examination of 3-month olds’ social evaluations. In the experiment, infants were shown a character that failed in an attempt to get to the top of a steep hill, and was alternately helped by being pushing up the hill or hindered by being pushed down the hill. Following habituations, infants’ visual preferences for the helper in comparison to the hinderer was measured. The control group in this experiment involved another group of 3-month-olds who were shown a physical control that had no social information pertaining to the climbing character. The physical control had its eyes removed and lacked self-propelled motion, however, it was also alternately pushed up and down the hill in its goal. The participants in this experiment included 24 3-month-old healthy full-term infants that were arbitrarily assigned to a Social …show more content…
On each trial, it was revealed that the Climber was resting at the bottom of the hill until the third attempt when it was bumped up to the top by the helper or bumped down to the bottom by a hinderer. In the inanimate control condition, a red circular inanimate object that lacked eyes and had no self-generated motion portrayed the Climber. The Climber was pushed up by the Pusher-Upper or pushed down by the Pusher-Downer in circular motion. Looking times (habituation times) were recorded for both the Social condition and the inanimate control