(no subject)

[pantryslut]

You know that NY Times story and video going around about the moral life of babies?

Well, the hypothesis is fascinating, but the vid shows up a huge experimental design flaw.

Can you spot it?

Comments

[elusis.livejournal.com]

1) Those are some white babies.

2) Double blind FAIL.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

#2 is the one I particularly had in mind.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I should also note that the article text claims that there *was* an attempt to avoid unconscious cuing. So it could be a problem with a restaging-for-video incident rather than the experiment itself.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I was sure hoping so. It looked possible that the researcher observing the baby was facing away from the puppet theatre, so if they randomly swapped which character was "nice" and "mean" s/he wouldn't know which to cue.

Except that in the video we saw, the gal immediately said "that's right, that's the nice guy!" when the baby reached for a puppet. WTF.

Guess I'll go have a look at the article. Because surely Yale wouldn't be conducting an experiment that I wouldn't let one of my Master's students get away with....

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Except that in the video we saw, the gal immediately said "that's right, that's the nice guy!" when the baby reached for a puppet. WTF.

Yup. That's the moment when I lost it.

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Oh, oops, I read the rest. It actually was double-blinded. "The experimenter holding out the characters and recording the responses hadn’t seen the puppet show, so he or she didn’t know who was the good guy and who the bad guy." Deleting comments now.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Are you referring to the experimental design flaw of studying babies who are not blank slates of raw genetic instinct, but people who have spent a year or so watching their parents demonstrate (or teach) human behaviors including fairness and compassion?

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

That too. But see above.

[boojum.livejournal.com]

Even if their experiment were perfectly designed, wouldn't this just show that babies know who's likely to help them? This is a test of manipulation skills, not morality.

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Exactly. "Like better"? That seems conceptually beyond the kids in the video. Want, sure. Believe to have superior moral behavior? I really doubt it.

But the first thing I noticed, too, was the lack of double blindedness.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is a design flaw, but... such cute babies! Apparently I could watch videos of babies for a long time and be fairly happy with that. I am hugely fascinated by infant cognitive development.

And in addition to double blind flaw, I agree that this does not necessarily test for morals. It tests for whether or not babies notice the behavior of others and make choices about it, yes, but we don't know if their reasons are based on morals, or based on knowing who is more likely to help them, as someone else mentioned.