All I Know Is These Babies Wouldn't Let Punch Get Away With Punching Judy
Or, do babies know right from wrong?
I discovered an interesting study a while back, and I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking about it, and wanting to talk about it, so put on your listening ears, guys, I’m about to tell you something cool. (Is it still cool to say cool? Answers on a postcard or a DM or whatever the youth are doing today, I feel like I need to know.)
So. For a long time, scientists believed that babies were blank slates – tiny little empty headed creatures shaped entirely by the whims of their parents and their environment, which you’ll know is crazy if you’ve ever spent any time looking after babies. (These researchers quite clearly hadn’t.) Taking as much a hold of the zeitgeist as long dead rumours that animals feel no pain, this theory influenced later psychological movements, notably behaviourism, which was largely responsible for such things as cry it out, “don’t show your children affection it’s unsanitary” and “put that baby down you’re spoiling it.” Despite the lack of actual evidence, and despite the common sense I’m sure the housewives of the time could have imparted, many people have believed for a long time in the empty baby thing, even as other scientists have come out like “uh, actually…” and have, as a result, continued to carry out behaviourist methods of yore, as well as continuing to debate nature vs nurture, even though we now know that one informs the other, so it’s not actually an issue of either or, but a case of both and all.