Born Kind: Five-Day-Old Babies Already Prefer Helpful Behaviors

Long before they learn to speak or crawl, newborns show a surprising preference for kindness and cooperation, suggesting some aspects of our moral compass may be hardwired from birth.

In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers have discovered that babies just five days old can distinguish between helpful and harmful social interactions – and they consistently prefer watching the helpful ones.

“These babies have almost no experience with the social world, and yet they’re already picking up on friendly versus unfriendly interactions,” explains Dr. Kiley Hamlin, psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and co-leader of the study. “That could be telling us something really important about human nature.”

Tracking tiny gazes reveals big insights

The research team, led by Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Alessandra Geraci from the University of Catania in Italy, showed 90 newborns simple animated videos displayed side by side. The babies’ eye movements were tracked to see which animations captured their attention longer.

In one pair of videos, a ball struggled to climb a hill. On one side, another ball helped push it upward; on the other side, a ball pushed the climber down. The newborns consistently spent more time watching the helping scenario.

• In another experiment, babies watched one ball moving toward another (approach) versus moving away (avoidance)
• Again, the newborns preferred watching the friendly, approaching action
• Control videos with non-social movements showed no such preference, confirming babies weren’t just responding to motion patterns

Infant vision better than you might think

While newborns are known for having poor vision, Dr. Hamlin explains this is often misunderstood: “Newborns don’t see well far away, but they can see pretty well up close—and motion captures their attention. Our animations were presented right in front of babies’ faces, in high contrast, with simple motions that repeated over and over.”

Nature versus nurture: Tipping the scales

This study builds on earlier research showing that older infants (6-10 months) prefer helpful characters. However, finding this preference in five-day-old newborns suggests these tendencies aren’t learned through experience.

“Five-day-old babies are asleep a lot of the time, and likely haven’t observed prosocial or antisocial behavior,” Dr. Hamlin points out. “Even if they had, their poor distance vision means they probably couldn’t process the event unless it happened immediately in front of their face.”

The study involved three experiments with careful controls to ensure the findings were robust. Researchers confirmed that babies weren’t simply responding to movement patterns by showing them control videos where balls moved without social interaction – and in these cases, babies showed no preference.

The roots of morality

These findings add weight to the idea that humans may be born with a basic sense of social goodness. While this doesn’t mean babies are born with a full moral framework, it suggests the foundations of social evaluation begin remarkably early.

“There’s been a lot of debate about whether morality is learned or innate,” says Hamlin. “This study doesn’t settle that debate, but it certainly pushes the needle toward the idea that some parts of our moral sense are built in.”

The research has implications for understanding human social development and possibly even conditions where social processing is atypical. It suggests that even before they can smile or sit up, babies are already watching the social world—and most seem to be rooting for the good guys.