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Babies can be mean-spirited: psychological study
The Slideshow ^ | 3/13/13 | Mike Krumboltz

Posted on 03/13/2013 6:27:14 PM PDT by EBH

Is your baby secretly plotting against you? Maybe. A study from the University of British Columbia's Centre for Infant Cognition found that babies have a bit of a mean streak when it comes to people they perceive as different.

In an experiment, babies were given a choice of snacks, either graham crackers or green beans (apparently some babies chose green beans--go figure). Researchers found that when babies study their surroundings, they show a lot of interest in people with different tastes and preferences.

The researchers conducted a puppet show for the subjects, ages 9 and 14 months. Puppet 1 "ate" the same snack that the baby chose, while Puppet 2 chose the other snack. Puppet 1 acted either friendly, indifferent, or aggressively toward Puppet 2.

Here's where it gets interesting. Researchers found that when given a choice of which puppet to play with afterward, "almost all the infants at both ages preferred the character who harmed the dissimilar puppet over the character who helped him," according to a press

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Humor; Society
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has anybody read the original peter pan book? not the disney adaption, but the real book. This is right up there with funding exercising shrimp, fat homsexual women, or any other studies.


21 posted on 03/13/2013 8:12:29 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: EBH

We are born with a soul and it is unique and expresses itself in every one of us from the moment of conception. Scientists can’t see it so they won’t acknowledge it exists, but they are talking about it as “hard wired preferences.” That is funny to me.


22 posted on 03/13/2013 10:10:33 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Wanderer99
'Mean spirited', I believe refers a feeling state: controlled by the limbic center, the earlier, less developed reptilian part of the brain than the cortex, where thinking occurs.

Cognitive development involve the neocortex.

Not sure that is applicable here.

23 posted on 03/14/2013 8:26:08 AM PDT by doberville
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To: bigheadfred
ANYONE who was ever a kid KNOWS THIS.

Exactly. How many adults come up to you and throw up in your face or tinkle all over your best shirt? All the time with that sweet "innocent" look about them??

Babies are evil.
EVIL I tell ya !!

24 posted on 03/14/2013 9:00:08 AM PDT by llevrok (Keep your arms out. It makes it harder for them to throw a net over you.)
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To: EBH

“Babies can be mean-spirited: psychological study”

Bad seed?


25 posted on 03/14/2013 11:08:50 AM PDT by Road Glide
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