New research suggests children as young as 18 months can tell if another person is being insincere.
"Our research shows that babies cannot be fooled into believing something that causes pain results in pleasure. Adults often try to shield infants from distress by putting on a happy face following a negative experience. But babies know the truth: as early as 18 months, they can implicitly understand which emotions go with which events," psychology professor Diane Poulin-Dubois said in a Concordia University news release.
The researchers analyzed 92 infants between the ages of 15 and 18 months old. The babies watched an actor who someone acted out a reaction that went or against their emotional response or matched it.
For example, in one scenario the actor looked sad when presented with a toy she actually wanted. In a scenario in which the emotion matched the response the actor pretended to hurt her finger and reacted as if she were in pain.
When the babies were only 15-months-old they showed little difference in reaction to the different scenarios, they displayed empathy for all sad faces even when they were fake.
"This indicates that the understanding of the link between a facial expression following an emotional experience is an ability that has yet to develop at that stage," the news release stated.
Once the babies hit 18 months they showed a clear difference in reaction when the actor was behaving genuinely and when they were not.
The 18-month-olds spent more time studying the actor's face and glancing at their guardians to see how they were reacting to the scene. They only showed empathy when the actor's sad face matched the action that took place directly before.
"The ability to detect sadness and then react immediately has an evolutionary implication. However, to function effectively in the social world, children need to develop the ability to understand others' [behaviors] by inferring what is going on internally for those around them," psychology researcher Sabrina Chiarella said.
The team is now working to determine if infants will stop trusting a person who is "emotionally unreliable."
