@article {1957, title = {Early Reasoning about Affiliation and Caregiving}, number = {ID: 325/PS-III: 39}, year = {2015}, month = {01/2015}, abstract = {

Considerable\  research\  has\  examined\  infants{\textquoteright}\  reasoning\  about\  and\  evaluations\  of\  social\  agents,\  but\  two\  questions\  remain\  unanswered: First, do infants organize observed social relations into larger structures, inferring the relationship between t wo social\  beings\  based\  on\  their\  relations\  to\  a\  third\  party?\  Second,\  how\  do\  infants\  reaso n\  about\  a\  type\  of\  social\  relations\  prominent\  in\  all\  societies:\  kinship\  relations\  that\  modulate\  caregiving?\  In\  a\  series\  of\  experiments\  using\  animated\  events,\  we\  ask\  whether\  9 - ,\  11 - ,\  and 15 - to 18 - month - old infants expect two babies\  who\  were comforted by the same caregiver, or two caregivers\  who comforted\  the same baby, to affiliate with one another. We find that older infants make these inferences in a caregiving context, but n ot in a\  different context involving social interactions among adults. Thus, infant s are sensitive to at least one aspect of kinship relations {\textemdash} caregiving {\textemdash} and organize these relations into larger social structures.

}, author = {A C Spokes and Elizabeth S Spelke} }