(Spotlight4814)Moral Babies 24 October, 2011
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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Nick Page. Voice 2
And I'm Mike Procter. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Recently, scientists at Yale University in the U.S.A. asked themselves a difficult question. They said, 'Can a young baby understand good behaviour and bad behaviour?' These scientists are psychologists - experts in human behaviour. The psychologists wanted to know if young babies could tell the difference between right and wrong. They were asking, 'Do even young babies have a moral conscience?' Voice 2
The psychologists developed some experiments. In one experiment, they used three model animals as actors in a short play. Babies aged between six months and one year watched the play. In the play, the three model animals play with a ball. The animals roll the ball to each other. They return it to each other. But then, one of the animals takes the ball - and runs away. The play is finished.
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Each baby watched the play several times. Then a psychologist held the model animals in front of the baby.
The psychologist waited for the baby to choose one of the animals. Almost all the babies chose the animal that always returned the ball. Very few babies chose the animal that stole the ball.
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Paul Bloom leads the study team at Yale University. In a story for the New York Times newspaper, he wrote,
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'Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.' Voice 2
He believes that some sense of right and wrong is present in people from the very start of life.
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The team of psychologists put the results of their experiments on the University website. There, members of the public wrote their comments about these results. A lot of people rejected the idea that babies can tell the difference between right and wrong. They do not believe that babies are born with a conscience. They believe that young babies have no morals. In believing this, they are accepting the ideas of Sigmund Freud.
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Sigmund Freud was a doctor who lived about a hundred years ago. He studied the working of the human mind.
Freud taught that no-one begins life with a conscience. He said that babies are amoral animals. They have no moral conscience, no sense of right and wrong. They just do the things that make them happy. Freud believed that babies have to learn what is good and what is evil. He said that this teaching comes from their families and their culture. Freud died in 1939 but some of his ideas now influence people all over the world.
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The psychologists from Yale University faced a problem when they decided to test Freud's ideas. The problem was this; how can you tell what a baby is thinking if the baby is too young to talk?
In the experiment with the model animals and the ball, the babies chose the helpful animal. But the psychologists also found another way to discover what babies are thinking. Scientists have discovered that people look for a longer time at something they like than at something they do not like. The psychologists used this information to find out what the babies considered was good.
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One of the experiments involved showing the babies a film. The film used three objects with faces painted on them. One object was a red ball. The red ball tried to climb a hill. A yellow square helped to push it up. But a green triangle tried to force it back down.
Then the scientists showed the babies pictures of the different shapes they had been watching. They measured how long the babies looked at each picture. The result was the same as in the first experiment. Eighty per cent of the babies approved of the helpful yellow square. Paul Bloom said,
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'With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see the beginnings of moral thought, moral judgement and moral feeling even in the first year of life'. Voice 1
Who is right? Is it Freud or the psychologists at Yale University? Or is there some truth in both ideas?
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Everyone knows that babies and children sometimes behave badly! But does that mean that they have no sense of right and wrong? Maybe they know what is right but they do not always do what is right! If that is the case, then this research raises important issues about human behaviour and religion. Paul Bloom says that people do not need to believe in God in order to explain the babies' behaviour. However, religion and morality are closely linked. All major religions have a strong sense of right and wrong - a sense that they believe comes from a higher authority.
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Are these religions right? Does an inborn sense of right and wrong come from God? Some people say 'no'. They say that the baby chooses a particular play animal not because the animal character is good, but because it is helpful. These people say that babies depend on adults for everything. So they would naturally choose the more helpful person. This theory suggests the babies' behaviour is not about morality, it is about survival. Voice 2
But religious teaching says different. For example, the Christian Bible teaches that everyone is born with a moral conscience. Everyone is able to understand God's main laws of right and wrong. The experiments the psychologists did seem to support this idea.
But the Bible agrees with Freud too. Freud said that children must be taught good behaviour. The Bible says, 'Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will keep to it'. Voice 1
Altogether, the Bible is saying that although people know the difference between right and wrong, they need to be trained to choose to do right. The Bible says this is because God gives people free will - he gives them freedom to choose between right and wrong. Still, it says, all people do wrong sometimes. No-one is perfect. It says there is only one man who never did wrong, who never sinned - and that is Jesus Christ.
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For people of all faiths, knowing right from wrong is at the heart of their experience of God. That is what makes the Yale experiments with the babies so interesting. The experiments raise very basic questions.
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Is there a universal 'right and wrong' that everyone understands? If so, where does it come from? If not, what was happening in the Yale experiments? If we are born with a sense of right and wrong, does that mean we are all responsible for the things we do - just by being people? What do you think? You can write to us atradio@english.net, or leave your comments on our website.
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The writers of today's programme were Joy Smith and Mike Procter. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. This programme and many more are on our website -http://www.radio.english.net. This programme is called 'Moral Babies' Thank you for listening to Spotlight today. Goodbye.
