Little Kids Are Already Judging You

Young children are surprisingly skilled at evaluating other people. Here's what they are picking up.

Right and Wrong Behavior

Children as young as 3 can watch adults perform an arbitrary manual task and infer that it is being done the correct way, even without being told, according to a report in Psychological Science. A degree of moral judgment seems to appear early as well. "While it's debatable whether children understand what is right and wrong, they know that there is a right and wrong, and they're looking out for social cues," says coauthor Lucas Butler, a psychologist at the University of Maryland. Another paper, in Cognition, showed that, when given a choice, infants and children were more likely to take a single gift from a friendly character than two from an unfriendly character. "A 3-year-old who watches someone transgress against someone else is actually quite likely to intervene or protest," says University of Virginia psychologist Amrisha Vaish.

Authenticity

In addition to precociously absorbing rules, very young children also quickly become able to recognize disingenuousness. Studies published in Evolution and Human Behavior show that young children are capable of distinguishing genuine smiles from fake ones in photographs—and that they expect kinder behavior from more genuine-looking people.

Intentions and Desires

Four-year-olds judge a person's behavior not only by its outcome but also by what was intended, a recent study found. Yet children seem put off by inner moral conflict, at least early in their lives. Yale University psychologists Paul Bloom and Christina Starmans found that, unlike adults, 3- to 8-year-olds expected better behavior from characters who acted morally without inner conflict than from those who had overcome immoral desires to do the right thing. Young children even favored someone who had committed an immoral act with a clear conscience over one who had struggled with it.