Newborn babies seem able to distinguish between prosocial and non-social behaviour in new study, though questions remain.

Article from BPS Research Digest

We are a remarkably cooperative species (at least, on the whole), capable of working together to everybody’s benefit. Research into the cognitive and emotional underpinnings of this has pointed to everything from our ability to feel empathy to a fundamental preference for prosocial, rather than anti-social, people.

The fact that these abilities and attitudes are seen across cultures, and that many have been observed in even young babies, has led to the idea that human morality itself may stem (at least in part) from evolved adaptations for sustaining cooperation within large groups, note the authors of a recent paper in Nature Communications.

Read the whole article here.