Infants Understand Social Interactions Even At a Young Age (STUDY)

social interactions

Summary: You may think your infant is unaware of what's going on around her when it comes to sophisticated social interactions. But researchers are finding that babies as young as nine months old are able to make inferences about social relationships and identify who is a friend and who is a foe.

By Sharon Mazel | Posted: January 9, 2014

Your little cutie hasn't even turned one yet, doesn't have much in the way of language skills (that adorably garbled "ga-ba" doesn't count), and isn't able to finesse social relationships yet. Or can she?

Researchers at the University of Chicago say their new study published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General suggests that even nine-month-old infants are socially adept enough to figure out whether the people they observe are friends or not. Babies do this by observing what other people like and dislike and then inferring whether or not those people are likely to be friends.

For their study, the researchers randomized 64 nine-month-old infants into groups and then showed each group videos of two adults. The adults each ate two foods and reacted in either a positive or a negative way to each food they ate. In some videos, the adults shared the same reactions, while in others they reacted differently. The researchers chose videos of eating because babies associate food and eating with being social (think about all the talking and cooing you do with your little one at mealtime and you'll understand what they mean).

The researchers then played other videos showing the same adults acting either positively or negatively toward each other. In the video showing a positive interaction, the adults greeted each other with smiles and a friendly "Hi!" In the other video, the adults turned away from each other, crossed their arms, and said "Hmp" in an unfriendly tone of voice.

The researchers measured the babies' reactions to these videos by assessing how long they looked at the screen at the end of the video. Previous research has found that when babies see something unexpected, they stay focused on what they're looking at longer... probably because they're trying to make sense of it.

The infants' responses to the videos suggested that they were surprised when adults who liked the same foods behaved negatively toward each other. They were also surprised when adults who disagreed about the foods behaved like friends. In other words, the babies were assuming that the adults who liked the same foods would be friends with each other — even in another context (i.e. not only around food) — and were confused when they didn't act in the expected way.

"This study raises questions on how babies think about who gets along and who doesn't," said lead author Zoe Liberman. "Parents will be interested to know that babies are keeping track of what's going on in the world around them and are making inferences about social interactions that we previously were not aware of before this study."

So, though, you may not think your little one is paying attention and absorbing the social interactions of others in her orbit, she is... and she's forming opinions about relationships and the world around her. Bottom line: Be aware of your interactions with your friends, your spouse, the cashier at the store when your baby is with you — because she's taking it all in and learning from it.

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