Babies not as innocent as they pretend - Telegraph | Hacker News Reader

Babies not as innocent as they pretend - Telegraph

telegraph.co.uk

10 pointsdfreidin5 comments

Of course they lie, they are completely open minds designed by nature to experiment with the world in order to survive, and therefore pursue any strategy they find will benefit them.

Random fun link: Learning from children: strategy, tactics and games in times of rapid change [http://news.noahraford.com/?p=203]

I presume that before this experiment, psychologists believed that lying wouldn't an option they came up with. For example, babies cry when they want/need something or if something is wrong. If you believe that in the presence of this want/need/problem they wouldn't realize what crying sounds like (and thus can't mimic it later) you wouldn't expect them to "lie" by crying.

Of course, anyone holding that theory would need to give an approximate age at which they are able to observe the sound and mimic it. The point here is that the age at which this happens is much earlier then people thought before.

This, I think, is what makes it a surprising discovery.

"Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old."

Where did the journalist get this bit of fiction from?

One simple web search reveals this:

"Children first begin lying verbally around age 3, the time when language development and the ability to control one's own mental skills combine to form a child's theory of mind. Also at this age, children have learned their parents' rules and the consequences of breaking them. So what does a child do when Mom finds a hand in the cookie jar? Lie."

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan08/liar.aspx

I understand that experiments need to be done in order to prove suspicions, and I understand that popular science media will exaggerate for impact, but when I read these articles I always end up wondering if the people writing or researching even have children. I keep reading about various 'discoveries' which are completely obvious to anyone who has a child.

Still it's good to spread the word to those who don't that children are way more complicated than we've thought. They are, essentially, tiny humans with all the behaviors and fewer of the social graces and emotional control.

Oddly, reminds me of "The Small Assassin", one of Ray Bradbury's short stories.

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