Babies Can Sense a ‘Good’ Person From a ‘Bad’ One, Long Before They Can Speak.

2 January 2022
by: Juicing For Health
in Family, Science

Last updated on

Most parents have seen it: your baby relaxes in the arms of one person but stiffens around another. It feels instinctive, almost like your baby can read people before they can speak. While many brush this off as coincidence, science is uncovering something truly interesting, babies may pay attention to kindness and unkindness much earlier than we ever imagined. This research doesn’t mean babies come into the world knowing right from wrong the way adults do. But it does suggest that the building blocks for understanding helpfulness, cooperation, and social behavior start working almost immediately after birth. Recent studies, even those involving babies just a few days old, are giving us a new look at how early the social mind begins to form.

How Scientists First Noticed Babies Prefer “Helpers”

Back in 2007, researchers at Yale University ran a now-famous experiment using simple puppets. Babies watched a little character trying to climb a hill. Sometimes another character came along and helped the climber get to the top. Other times, a different character shoved the climber back down. Afterward, babies were offered both puppets. Most reached toward the helper. Researchers believed this meant even very young infants were noticing who helped and who didn’t, and showing a preference for the kind character. This idea sparked a wave of excitement. Could babies really be evaluating social behavior long before they understand words? The study opened the door to a whole new line of research into early moral development.

The Newborn Study That Shifted the Conversation

Years passed, and many studies tried to recreate the original results with mixed success. Some succeeded, some didn’t. This uncertainty pushed scientists to ask an even bigger question: Are these preferences learned in the first months of life? Or are they there from birth? In 2025, a new study took the bold step of testing newborns, babies only five days old, on average. These newborns had barely opened their eyes to the world, making it nearly impossible for them to have learned anything about kindness or behavior. Because newborns can’t reach, researchers used a different method: looking time. This simply measures which videos the babies look at longer. The babies watched simple animations designed for their limited vision. One animation showed a “climber” struggling up a hill and another shape helping it. Another animation showed a shape pushing the climber down. Even at just a few days old, babies looked longer at the helping scene. This wasn’t proof of moral judgment, but it did suggest newborns may be tuned into certain types of social interactions from the very beginning.

Why Researchers Needed to Rule Out “Up vs. Down” Motion

Even with this strong result, there was still a big question: What if babies simply prefer upward motion to downward motion? After all, upward movement may be more visually appealing or easier for newborns to track. To test this, the team created another version of the videos. This time there was no climber with a goal, just an object being pushed up or pushed down with no social meaning. If the babies were simply drawn to upward motion, they should have looked longer at the “up” video again. But they didn’t. They looked at both videos equally. The preference only appeared when the upward or downward motion involved a character with a goal. This suggests the newborns were responding not to the movement itself, but to what the movement represented, helping versus hindering.

What This Means for Parents

These findings don’t mean newborns understand fairness, empathy, or morality the way older children do. But they do suggest something more basic: babies may be watching the world with an instinctive interest in helpful behavior. For parents, this idea can feel reassuring. It means the roots of kindness might be part of our earliest wiring, and that the gestures of love and support babies receive from the adults around them matter even more than we realize. Researchers often explain that babies seem to arrive ready to learn from the social world. They are tuned into actions that involve goals, cooperation, assistance, and conflict. These early abilities may guide how infants eventually learn the difference between helpful and hurtful behavior, long before they can form complete thoughts.

How Early Social Biases Shape Development

While newborns are not making moral judgments, they do appear to come equipped with a system for tracking social interactions. Scientists refer to these as “precursors”, tools that help babies make sense of a world filled with people acting in many different ways. These early preferences might help babies:
  • pay attention to caregivers who are gentle and responsive,
  • feel more comfortable around cooperative interactions,
  • notice when something seems off or unkind,
  • learn whom they can trust,
  • and gradually build the foundation for later social understanding.
As babies grow into toddlers and young children, these early abilities combine with language, experience, and emotional development. Over time, this leads to more complex ideas, sharing, fairness, empathy, and eventually moral reasoning.

How This Research Connects to Real Life Parenting

You’ve probably seen your baby stare at someone new with serious concentration. Or light up immediately with one person but seem unsure around another. While you shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that babies are judging people’s character, it does mean they are learning. Your baby is constantly observing:
  • who comforts them,
  • who makes them feel safe,
  • who interacts gently,
  • and who responds to their needs.
These everyday moments help shape the child’s sense of security and their early understanding of social relationships. And while science continues to explore the earliest roots of morality, one message feels clear: babies are not passive observers. They are active learners from the start, absorbing the emotional tone, behavior, and interactions around them.

What Parents Can Do to Nurture Social Understanding

Even though babies may already be tuned into certain types of behavior, parents still play the biggest role in shaping how a child learns about kindness, compassion, and trust. Simple, everyday actions help strengthen a baby’s sense of safety and their ability to read social cues. Here are supportive practices parents often find helpful:
  • Offer Consistent Warmth: Babies thrive when they know someone will respond to their needs. Comforting your baby, talking to them, and offering gentle touch strengthens their emotional security.
  • Model Kindness: Your baby is watching you constantly. When you treat others with patience and respect, your child absorbs those patterns long before they can repeat them.
  • Label Feelings in Simple Ways: Even though newborns don’t understand words, talking about emotions (“Mama is happy,” “You’re feeling sad”) helps build the foundation for emotional understanding later on.
  • Expose Your Baby to Positive Interactions: Calm voices, slow movements, and friendly faces can help your baby feel safe in social settings.
  • Keep Stress Levels Manageable: Babies pick up on tension in the household. Finding ways to maintain a peaceful environment, short walks, breaks, or supportive conversations, benefits both you and your child.

The Bottom Line for Parents

You don’t need to run scientific experiments to see that your baby is already trying to understand the world. Every time they stare closely at someone’s face, follow your voice, or watch how one person reacts to another, they’re learning. While newborns are not making moral judgments, they do seem to arrive with built-in tools that help them pay attention to the kinds of behaviors that matter in human relationships. These early preferences guide how they learn from you, how they connect with others, and how they begin forming their sense of security and trust. As research continues to grow, one thing remains clear: babies learn from love. The secure, responsive relationship you build with them is their primary classroom. When you respond to their cues, speak to them with warmth, and show them kindness, you are not just meeting their physical needs; you are actively shaping their understanding of relationships, trust, and empathy. You are their guide, and the loving, consistent interactions you share every day are the most profound lessons they will ever learn. Sources:
  1. Geraci, A., Surian, L., Tina, L. G., & Hamlin, J. K. (2025). Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions. Nature Communications, 16(1), 6304. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61517-3

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