Babies show inherent dislike for those who are different: UBC study

VANCOUVER – A study out of the University of B.C. suggests babies may have a mean streak.

A professor from the Department of Psychology found infants as young as nine months favour those who bring harm to people who are different than themselves.

Kiley Hamlin, lead author of the study published in the journal Psychological Science, says the results were surprising to her because almost all of the 112 babies tested acted the same.

For the study, babies between nine and 14 months chose a food they preferred — green beans or graham crackers.

The infants were then shown a puppet show where a puppet demonstrated the same food preference as the infant and another puppet demonstrated the opposite preference.

The study showed that the babies later preferred the puppets who harmed the puppet with the opposite food preferences.