Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study

Kelsey Lucca¹, Francis Yuen², Yiyi Wang³, Nicolás Alessandroni⁴, Olivia Allison⁵, Mario Alvarez¹, Emma L Axelsson⁶, Janina Baumer⁷, Heidi A Baumgartner⁸, Julie Bertels⁹, Mitali Bhavsar¹⁰, Krista Byers-Heinlein⁴, Arthur Capelier-Mourguy¹¹, Hitomi Chijiiwa¹², Chantelle S-S Chin², Natalie Christner¹³, Laura K Cirelli¹⁴, John Corbit¹⁵, Moritz M Daum^{16

17}, Tiffany Doan¹⁴, Michaela Dresel¹⁸, Anna Exner¹⁹, Wenxi Fei²⁰, Samuel H Forbes²¹, Laura Franchin²², Michael C Frank²³, Alessandra Geraci²⁴, Michelle Giraud²⁵, Megan E Gornik²⁶, Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann²⁷, Tobias Grossmann⁵, Isabelle M Hadley²⁶, Naomi Havron^{28

29}, Annette M E Henderson³⁰, Emmy Higgs Matzner³¹, Bailey A Immel³², Grzegorz Jankiewicz³³, Wiktoria Jędryczka³³, Yasuhiro Kanakogi¹², Jonathan F Kominsky³⁴, Casey Lew-Williams³⁵, Zoe Liberman³², Liquan Liu^{36

37

38}, Yilin Liu³⁹, Miriam T Loeffler^{16

17}, Alia Martin¹⁸, Julien Mayor⁴⁰, Xianwei Meng⁴¹, Michal Misiak^{42

43}, David Moreau^{30

44}, Mira L Nencheva^{23

35}, Linda S Oña^{45

46}, Yenny Otálora⁴⁷, Markus Paulus¹³, Bill Pepe⁴⁸, Charisse B Pickron³¹, Lindsey J Powell⁴⁸, Marina Proft⁴⁹, Alyssa A Quinn⁶, Hannes Rakoczy⁴⁹, Peter J Reschke⁵⁰, Ronit Roth-Hanania⁵¹, Katrin Rothmaler^{27

52}, Karola Schlegelmilch^{45

46}, Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz^{34

53}, Mark A Schmuckler¹⁴, Tobias Schuwerk¹³, Sabine Seehagen¹⁹, Hilal H Şen⁵⁴, Munna R Shainy^{23

55}, Valentina Silvestri²⁵, Melanie Soderstrom²⁶, Jessica Sommerville⁵⁶, Hyun-Joo Song⁵⁷, Piotr Sorokowski³³, Sandro E Stutz^{16

17}, Yanjie Su⁵⁸, Hernando Taborda-Osorio⁵⁹, Alvin W M Tan²³, Denis Tatone³⁴, Teresa Taylor-Partridge⁶⁰, Chiu Kin Adrian Tsang^{2

61}, Arkadiusz Urbanek⁶², Florina Uzefovsky⁶³, Ingmar Visser⁷, Annie E Wertz^{32

46}, Madison Williams⁴, Kristina Wolsey³⁰, Terry Tin-Yau Wong⁶¹, Amanda M Woodward⁶⁴, Yang Wu¹⁴, Zhen Zeng^{38

65}, Lucie Zimmer¹³, J Kiley Hamlin²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
⁶ School of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia.
⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.
⁸ Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
⁹ Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
¹⁰ ARISA Foundation, Baner, Maharashtra, India.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire, UK.
¹² Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
¹³ Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
¹⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.
¹⁶ Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁸ School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
¹⁹ Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
²⁰ Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
²¹ Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
²² Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
²³ Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
²⁴ Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Sicily, Italy.
²⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
²⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
²⁷ Minerva Fast Track Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany.
²⁸ School of Psychological Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
²⁹ Center for Child Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
³⁰ School of Psychology, The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, New Zealand.
³¹ Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
³² Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
³³ Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
³⁴ Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria.
³⁵ Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
³⁶ Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁷ School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Pentrith, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁸ The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁹ School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴¹ Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.
⁴² IDN Being Human, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁴³ School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁴⁴ Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁴⁵ Institute of Biology, Department of Human Biology and Primate Cognition, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
⁴⁶ Max Planck Research Group Naturalistic Social Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁷ Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.
⁴⁸ Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
⁴⁹ Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Gottingen, Niedersachsen, Germany.
⁵⁰ School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.
⁵¹ Department of Psychology, The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
⁵² Humboldt Research Group for Child Development, Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany.
⁵³ TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
⁵⁴ Faculty of Psychology, University of Akureyri, Akureyri, Iceland.
⁵⁵ Axxonet Brain Research Laboratory, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
⁵⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁷ Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁵⁸ School of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁵⁹ Departamento de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia.
⁶⁰ Department of Psychology, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
⁶¹ Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
⁶² Institute of Pedagogy, Faculty of Pedagogical and Historical Sciences, University of Wrocław, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁶³ Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
⁶⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR.

PMID: 39600132
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13581

Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study

Kelsey Lucca et al. Dev Sci. 2025 Jan.

. 2025 Jan;28(1):e13581.

doi: 10.1111/desc.13581.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
⁶ School of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia.
⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.
⁸ Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
⁹ Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
¹⁰ ARISA Foundation, Baner, Maharashtra, India.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire, UK.
¹² Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
¹³ Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
¹⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.
¹⁶ Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁸ School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
¹⁹ Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
²⁰ Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
²¹ Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
²² Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
²³ Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
²⁴ Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Sicily, Italy.
²⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
²⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
²⁷ Minerva Fast Track Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany.
²⁸ School of Psychological Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
²⁹ Center for Child Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
³⁰ School of Psychology, The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, New Zealand.
³¹ Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
³² Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
³³ Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
³⁴ Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria.
³⁵ Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
³⁶ Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁷ School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Pentrith, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁸ The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia.
³⁹ School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴¹ Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.
⁴² IDN Being Human, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁴³ School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁴⁴ Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁴⁵ Institute of Biology, Department of Human Biology and Primate Cognition, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
⁴⁶ Max Planck Research Group Naturalistic Social Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁷ Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.
⁴⁸ Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
⁴⁹ Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Gottingen, Niedersachsen, Germany.
⁵⁰ School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.
⁵¹ Department of Psychology, The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
⁵² Humboldt Research Group for Child Development, Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany.
⁵³ TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
⁵⁴ Faculty of Psychology, University of Akureyri, Akureyri, Iceland.
⁵⁵ Axxonet Brain Research Laboratory, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
⁵⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁷ Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁵⁸ School of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁵⁹ Departamento de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia.
⁶⁰ Department of Psychology, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
⁶¹ Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
⁶² Institute of Pedagogy, Faculty of Pedagogical and Historical Sciences, University of Wrocław, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁶³ Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
⁶⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR.

PMID: 39600132
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13581

Erratum in

Correction to "Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study".
[No authors listed] [No authors listed] Dev Sci. 2025 Jul;28(4):e70029. doi: 10.1111/desc.70029. Dev Sci. 2025. PMID: 40364601 No abstract available.

Abstract

Evaluating whether someone's behavior is praiseworthy or blameworthy is a fundamental human trait. A seminal study by Hamlin and colleagues in 2007 suggested that the ability to form social evaluations based on third-party interactions emerges within the first year of life: infants preferred a character who helped, over hindered, another who tried but failed to climb a hill. This sparked a new line of inquiry into the origins of social evaluations; however, replication attempts have yielded mixed results. We present a preregistered, multi-laboratory, standardized study aimed at replicating infants' preference for Helpers over Hinderers. We intended to (1) provide a precise estimate of the effect size of infants' preference for Helpers over Hinderers, and (2) determine the degree to which preferences are based on social information. Using the ManyBabies framework for big team-based science, we tested 1018 infants (567 included, 5.5-10.5 months) from 37 labs across five continents. Overall, 49.34% of infants preferred Helpers over Hinderers in the social condition, and 55.85% preferred characters who pushed up, versus down, an inanimate object in the nonsocial condition; neither proportion differed from chance or from each other. This study provides evidence against infants' prosocial preferences in the hill paradigm, suggesting the effect size is weaker, absent, and/or develops later than previously estimated. As the first of its kind, this study serves as a proof-of-concept for using active behavioral measures (e.g., manual choice) in large-scale, multi-lab projects studying infants.

Keywords: experimental methods; infancy; moral development; reproducibility; social cognition; social development.

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References

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1. Barr, R. 2010. “Transfer of Learning Between 2D and 3D Sources During Infancy: Informing Theory and Practice.” Developmental Review 30, no. 2: 128–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2010.03.001.
1. Bergmann, C., S. Tsuji, P. E. Piccinini, et al. 2018. “Promoting Replicability in Developmental Research Through Meta‐Analyses: Insights From Language Acquisition Research.” Child Development 89: 1996–2009. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13079.
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Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study

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Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study

Authors

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