The babies born to crusade for justice

CHILDREN have a sense of justice from the age of only one and expect to see wrongdoers punished by those in charge, say researchers.

toddlers aged from 16 to 18 months expect leaders such as parents and teachers to act when someone breaks the rules, a study of 120 children suggests.

Even before they can form sentences, children are said to understand right and wrong and leaders’ enforcement role.

the researchers tested toddlers by using a teddy bear puppet show in which a ‘wrongdoer’ bear took all the toys and did not share. When the female ‘leader’ bear failed to punish this, the youngsters stared at the scene for much longer – which they do when they see something unexpected.

But when the leader intervened to give the bear that had missed out on a toy, the children looked away about nine seconds sooner, showing events had proceeded just as they thought they should.

Psychology professor Renee Baillargeon, who led the University of illinois study, said: ‘infants stared longer when the leader ignored the wrongdoing than when she rectified it. this suggests that infants expected the leader to intervene and right the wrong in her group, and were surprised when she took no such action.’

children realised which was the leader in the bear show after that puppet told two other bears to face forward or backwards and they did so.

Next the leader brought two toys for the bears to share, with the wrongdoer bear grabbing both for herself so the victim bear lost out.

When the leader bear took the toy back from the wrongdoer and gave it to the victim, the children in the study looked at this for almost ten seconds. But when the leader failed to act, approaching the bears but not taking a toy back, they showed apparent surprise by staring for almost 20 seconds.

the US study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

it concluded: ‘By the second year of life, infants thus already ascribe unique responsibilities to leaders, including that of righting wrongs.’

Experts believe the reason children could be hardwired in this way probably goes back to our caveman days when it was important to work together to find food and shelter and selfish behaviour was cracked down on.