empathy for the victim

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greentara
Posts: 933
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:03 am

empathy for the victim

Post by greentara »

BABIES develop empathy before they can speak, Japanese psychologists have found.

The researchers from Kyoto and Toyohashi universities found that infants as young as ten months old automatically sided with the underdog after being shown videos of shapes “violently attacking” each other.

In one experiment, the infants were shown an animated video of a blue ball attacking and crushing a yellow cube. Afterwards, when they were offered a real blue ball and yellow cube, the infants instinctively reached for the cube.

After the roles were reversed in an alternative video, the subjects chose the ball. “We found that infants preferentially reached for the victim over the aggressor,”
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mandala
Posts: 171
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:51 pm

Re: empathy for the victim

Post by mandala »

I think that's a tenuous link to suggesting babies empathise with 'victims'.

More likely, it's a case of... do you want a scary ball that just exploded something else? hell no, give me the cube.
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