Fascinating clip. Thanks for making this information more accessible! Andy Thompson's American Atheists talk, (which is great; I recommend it) outlines a variety of instincts that together feed the religious impulse, but seeing the actual studies re-enacted makes it less abstract.
@mooktank Thankfully, they were. I managed to find the original study at scribd[dot]com/doc/23525253/Social-evaluation-by-preverbal-infants-Hamlin-Wynn-Bloom-2007
I was happy to discover that the study was indeed blinded. They simply didn't bother to do so when they reenacted it for the documentary.
@FlyingFree333 Are you saying we can confidently rule out the possibility of the researcher affecting which of the option the child chooses? It would be as easy as letting another researcher show the forms to the baby. A simple blinding would give a lot more credibility. If you thing I'm being over-zealous you can just take a look at 2:15 to see what I mean :)
@FlyingFree333 I disagree. If one researcher does the play and another researcher (having not seen the play) presents the puppets/figures to the baby. This simple blinding effectively removes the possibility of the researcher influencing the baby's choice. Do you agree? If not, why?
The researcher did nothing to influence the child's decision, simply presented the 2 toys. You are being paranoid. This study was also peer reviewed and no flaws were found in their methodology or findings.
@FlyingFree333 How on earth do you know that the researcher did not influence the child? For all we know the results could actually show how good babies are at reading body-language :)
I have not read the actual study. For all I know they may have taken appropriate counter-measures in the real study, but simply did not bother to replicate it exactly when making this video. But what I see on the video would not satisfy my requirement for scientific diligence.
@FlyingFree333 I'm not proposing a conspiracy. I'm pointing out the lack of mechanisms preventing human errancy to influence the results. Why do you think medical studies (as you mentioned earlier) are even more diligently blinded than what I suggest for this study?
Medical studies have to account for placebo effect, psych studies don't. Medical studies have to account for many more variables like drug interactions, different absorption rates, resistances, etc. that psych studies don't. Medical studies have to check for long term side effects, psych studies don't. Drugs are a hell of a lot more complicated than evaluating someone's reaction to a simple stimulus.
@FlyingFree333 You do know that the placebo effect is a largely psychological effect? My question is how the researchers can be certain what the stimulus actually *is* in this case. Is it the play, or is it the body language of the researcher? You seem quite certain that it cannot be the latter. All I'm saying is that I would have been a lot more certain of this as well, had they bothered with a simple blinding.
The placebo effect is mental in origin but affects health so only comes into play when testing for health. A study about a psych therapy would have to account for it, but not a study testing a simple stimulus and response not related to health. The study also had no safeguards against EMI, radiation, biological contamination, radio wave interference or witchcraft, does that invalidate the results?
@FlyingFree333 You seem to have a different view than what I have on how much humans communicate through body-language. I suggest the following read to learn more about my view: wikipedia[dot]org/wiki/Nonverbal_communication#The_relation_between_verbal_and_nonverbal_communication
I'm well aware that the majority of communication is nonverbal, I'm also aware that none of that communication was present here, the toys were simply held out with no preference shown to either one. Watch the video again, watch the researcher's body language, they do not show any difference between the toys. Body language is not invisible, we may pick it up mostly unconsciously but it can be observed.
FYI: I tracked down the original study and found, to my delight, the following statement: "A coder blind to the identities of the characters monitored infants’ looking times and administered the choice measure."
It seems the fine folks at Yale University did indeed use a blind in the actual study, and simply did not bother to do so for the documentary. I happily retract my original statement saying that this must be a bogus study. Clearly, the study is scientifically diligent.
@FlyingFree333 It's not paranoia to point out a very reasonable confounding variable in an experiment, especially when the mechanism of that variable has been shown to exist and when there's an obvious mechanism which could lead to that variable to a false positive result. And though it's nice that it's peer-reviewed, not everyone has as much leniency in approach as do social scientists. I don't mean to donwplay their research, but it is often more forgiving than it ought to be.
@TheConcolor I agree completely with your suggestion, to improve the study. I saw the same flaw when I watched the video. It's a problem with many studies in the social sciences: they just aren't that concerned with potentially confounding variables.
I managed to find the original study at scribd[dot]com/doc/23525253/Social-evaluation-by-preverbal-infants-Hamlin-Wynn-Bloom-2007
I was happy to discover that the study was indeed blinded. They simply didn't bother to do so for the documentary-makers. Good to see lots of scientifically minded people out here on the interwebs :D
@TheConcolor Ah, thanks for the link. I'll take a look at the study, and I'm glad to hear that it was more rigorous than they made it appear in the documentary. As for being scientifically-minded, right back at you.
I wonder if the child's chosen object has anything to do with the order in which they were introduced. In both examples in the video the child chose the last object introduced.
Psychology is amazing. Discovering our own innate nature definitely unlocks many answers to so many questions and yet brings so many more to the table.
"We need James Randi to figure out if there is some sort of error in these tests."
You don't need a celebrity like Randi to "figure out the errors," the scientific method will, in time, weed out poor methodology. Scientists love nothing better then proving another scientist's theories wrong.
Of course this takes time and "cutting edge theories" often fall to the historical scrap heap of poor methodology.
Easy to answer, do you like nice people or mean ones? Do you like people who you share common interests with or people you have nothing in common with? Do you like people who want to play and share or people who don't? It's what everyone chooses, because the opposite makes no sense.
@FlyingFree333 I get that in general - the human desire to relate to other people. But I thought it's possible I'd like the green one because I'm kind of a loner. =P Again, I can't know which I would've actually picked, but I at least think that probability I would've picked the green one is greater than the overall proportion of people who picked the green one, even if that's just something like 15% instead of 3%.
A loner just means you have less need for social interaction, not that your values when choosing the interaction are any different, when you do choose friends you still do it based on the same criteria as everyone else.
@FlyingFree333 The green one could be seen as a more solitary individual, like a loner. I was often a solitary individual. Therefore I think it's possible I would've chosen the green one because it would be like me in that regard. Again, I'm not stating that I certainly would've chosen green. I just think it's more likely I would've chosen green than the average person.
@FlyingFree333 I don't assume it for certain. In fact, as long as my probability of having been a natural loner is greater than the average person's probability of having been a natural loner, then all other things equal, the probability of selecting the green one would increase. Anyway, there really wasn't a need to go on about this so long... I just wanted to explain why I was still curious about which I would've reached for, even after watching and understanding the video.
She put the blue one in his hand for the camera, because it wouldn't fit the message if the baby picked up the yellow one then the camera zoomed in on it.
The others laughed about it, but that is what I can see as a media graduate, the baby made a choice, then made another choice, which contradicted the message, the woman preempted it by forcing the blue object into the babies hand again.
The baby wanted a toy and the preferred toy was taken away, the researcher was then embarrassed by her mistake because she was distracted talking. There was nothing improper going on. If they really wanted to be manipulative they simply would have done another take, they left it in because it didn't mean anything.
In answer to the paranoid freak. Try not to ad-hominem me I could quite easily dance all over the validity of the study because it uses terms which aren't objectively verifiable.
Also if the woman can coerce the child on camera, there is no way of knowing if she did it off camera but there is one thing we do know, she did it which makes her easily capable.
Everyone is capable of murder is that evidence that everyone is a murder? If you question the validity of the study look up the research papers rather than nitpicking a stupid gaff someone made in a documentary. Your arguments are ridiculous and tiresome.
@MarxIzalias Scientifically it means nothing, it means the baby was reduced to one option. Media wise it might mean something, and no doubt media techniques were used to convey the intended meaning, but the action itself has no scientific relevance except that the baby would take any toy if it was the only option.
Actually it has rather interesting implications. We don't know if the baby was given instruction before that take, there is no way of knowing aside from what they tell us but when the woman instructs the baby quite clearly, "no this one", it can make make a person wonder if that occurred before the camera is turned on, because it occurred during the recording. How many takes were there and did the same thing happen during those takes, there is only one way of knowing
@MarxIzalias The same could be said for every documentry, do you suggest we completely ignore them and what the present? or do you suggest we think about whether it is likely or whether their is reason to tweak the doco? What purpose does it serve, if they tweak the take and its not scientifically varified it has no meaning, scientists will use the research papers, not the doco. your applying possibilities from a media perspective, not one that influences the scientific validity of the study.
@FlyingFree333 Yes the professor did say that we have a "paranoid" instinct that assumes intent on animate objects.Add that too our innate need for anthropomorphic characterization and bingo...You have a god!
So is your appendix and your inability to produce vitamin C, both can kill you. The fact that something has evolved doesn't make it right, rape evolved too.
Fascinating clip. Thanks for making this information more accessible! Andy Thompson's American Atheists talk, (which is great; I recommend it) outlines a variety of instincts that together feed the religious impulse, but seeing the actual studies re-enacted makes it less abstract.
TrustingDoubt 2 weeks ago
I hope they're a little more careful in their "real" experiments.
mooktank 9 months ago
@mooktank Thankfully, they were. I managed to find the original study at scribd[dot]com/doc/23525253/Social-evaluation-by-preverbal-infants-Hamlin-Wynn-Bloom-2007
I was happy to discover that the study was indeed blinded. They simply didn't bother to do so when they reenacted it for the documentary.
TheConcolor 9 months ago 2
The study was not blinded. No credibility. I still think the principle behind may be correct, but not based on this bogus study.
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
Medical studies have double blinds, not psych studies. There is nothing wrong with the methodology used here.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 Are you saying we can confidently rule out the possibility of the researcher affecting which of the option the child chooses? It would be as easy as letting another researcher show the forms to the baby. A simple blinding would give a lot more credibility. If you thing I'm being over-zealous you can just take a look at 2:15 to see what I mean :)
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
The child had already chosen, the experiment was over. There is no way to do blind psych studies the researcher has to know what they are doing.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 I disagree. If one researcher does the play and another researcher (having not seen the play) presents the puppets/figures to the baby. This simple blinding effectively removes the possibility of the researcher influencing the baby's choice. Do you agree? If not, why?
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
The researcher did nothing to influence the child's decision, simply presented the 2 toys. You are being paranoid. This study was also peer reviewed and no flaws were found in their methodology or findings.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 How on earth do you know that the researcher did not influence the child? For all we know the results could actually show how good babies are at reading body-language :)
I have not read the actual study. For all I know they may have taken appropriate counter-measures in the real study, but simply did not bother to replicate it exactly when making this video. But what I see on the video would not satisfy my requirement for scientific diligence.
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
You saw the presentation of the toys to the child, they were simply held out, no grand conspiracy, you are being paranoid.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 I'm not proposing a conspiracy. I'm pointing out the lack of mechanisms preventing human errancy to influence the results. Why do you think medical studies (as you mentioned earlier) are even more diligently blinded than what I suggest for this study?
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
Medical studies have to account for placebo effect, psych studies don't. Medical studies have to account for many more variables like drug interactions, different absorption rates, resistances, etc. that psych studies don't. Medical studies have to check for long term side effects, psych studies don't. Drugs are a hell of a lot more complicated than evaluating someone's reaction to a simple stimulus.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 You do know that the placebo effect is a largely psychological effect? My question is how the researchers can be certain what the stimulus actually *is* in this case. Is it the play, or is it the body language of the researcher? You seem quite certain that it cannot be the latter. All I'm saying is that I would have been a lot more certain of this as well, had they bothered with a simple blinding.
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
The placebo effect is mental in origin but affects health so only comes into play when testing for health. A study about a psych therapy would have to account for it, but not a study testing a simple stimulus and response not related to health. The study also had no safeguards against EMI, radiation, biological contamination, radio wave interference or witchcraft, does that invalidate the results?
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 You seem to have a different view than what I have on how much humans communicate through body-language. I suggest the following read to learn more about my view: wikipedia[dot]org/wiki/Nonverbal_communication#The_relation_between_verbal_and_nonverbal_communication
How can I learn more about your view?
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor
I'm well aware that the majority of communication is nonverbal, I'm also aware that none of that communication was present here, the toys were simply held out with no preference shown to either one. Watch the video again, watch the researcher's body language, they do not show any difference between the toys. Body language is not invisible, we may pick it up mostly unconsciously but it can be observed.
FlyingFree333 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333
FYI: I tracked down the original study and found, to my delight, the following statement: "A coder blind to the identities of the characters monitored infants’ looking times and administered the choice measure."
It seems the fine folks at Yale University did indeed use a blind in the actual study, and simply did not bother to do so for the documentary. I happily retract my original statement saying that this must be a bogus study. Clearly, the study is scientifically diligent.
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@FlyingFree333 It's not paranoia to point out a very reasonable confounding variable in an experiment, especially when the mechanism of that variable has been shown to exist and when there's an obvious mechanism which could lead to that variable to a false positive result. And though it's nice that it's peer-reviewed, not everyone has as much leniency in approach as do social scientists. I don't mean to donwplay their research, but it is often more forgiving than it ought to be.
meritocratic1337 9 months ago
@TheConcolor I agree completely with your suggestion, to improve the study. I saw the same flaw when I watched the video. It's a problem with many studies in the social sciences: they just aren't that concerned with potentially confounding variables.
meritocratic1337 9 months ago
@meritocratic1337
I managed to find the original study at scribd[dot]com/doc/23525253/Social-evaluation-by-preverbal-infants-Hamlin-Wynn-Bloom-2007
I was happy to discover that the study was indeed blinded. They simply didn't bother to do so for the documentary-makers. Good to see lots of scientifically minded people out here on the interwebs :D
TheConcolor 9 months ago
@TheConcolor Ah, thanks for the link. I'll take a look at the study, and I'm glad to hear that it was more rigorous than they made it appear in the documentary. As for being scientifically-minded, right back at you.
meritocratic1337 9 months ago
I wonder if the child's chosen object has anything to do with the order in which they were introduced. In both examples in the video the child chose the last object introduced.
soulure 9 months ago
@soulure Not in the puppets tasting the food. The first puppet liked the food the baby liked, and that's the one the baby chose, not the second one.
Crunchy68 9 months ago
Psychology is amazing. Discovering our own innate nature definitely unlocks many answers to so many questions and yet brings so many more to the table.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 9 months ago
Religion can be directly attributed to the path of human evolution. That seems ironic.
ASparrow1 9 months ago
I prefer to be aborted than to be born to be religious :D
insanewarlock666 1 year ago 6
We need James Randi to figure out if there is some sort of error in these tests.
If not its, the results are quite interesting.
I don't understand how the kid could understand that the good thing was climbing the hill.
saintpine 1 year ago
@saintpine
"We need James Randi to figure out if there is some sort of error in these tests."
You don't need a celebrity like Randi to "figure out the errors," the scientific method will, in time, weed out poor methodology. Scientists love nothing better then proving another scientist's theories wrong.
Of course this takes time and "cutting edge theories" often fall to the historical scrap heap of poor methodology.
Hopeful71 9 months ago
Yeah, the post button doesn't always like me on youtube. If your post button doesn't like you, then maybe we can be friends... ;p
CraniumOnEmpty 1 year ago
Hmm... I wonder if I would've gone for the orange or the green... no way to ever know, I guess.
DreamwaIker 1 year ago
@DreamwaIker
Easy to answer, do you like nice people or mean ones? Do you like people who you share common interests with or people you have nothing in common with? Do you like people who want to play and share or people who don't? It's what everyone chooses, because the opposite makes no sense.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333 I get that in general - the human desire to relate to other people. But I thought it's possible I'd like the green one because I'm kind of a loner. =P Again, I can't know which I would've actually picked, but I at least think that probability I would've picked the green one is greater than the overall proportion of people who picked the green one, even if that's just something like 15% instead of 3%.
DreamwaIker 1 year ago
@DreamwaIker
A loner just means you have less need for social interaction, not that your values when choosing the interaction are any different, when you do choose friends you still do it based on the same criteria as everyone else.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333 The green one could be seen as a more solitary individual, like a loner. I was often a solitary individual. Therefore I think it's possible I would've chosen the green one because it would be like me in that regard. Again, I'm not stating that I certainly would've chosen green. I just think it's more likely I would've chosen green than the average person.
DreamwaIker 1 year ago
@DreamwaIker
You also assume you were born a loner and that it's not a result of experiences.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333 I don't assume it for certain. In fact, as long as my probability of having been a natural loner is greater than the average person's probability of having been a natural loner, then all other things equal, the probability of selecting the green one would increase. Anyway, there really wasn't a need to go on about this so long... I just wanted to explain why I was still curious about which I would've reached for, even after watching and understanding the video.
DreamwaIker 1 year ago
2:16 The baby goes for the yellow one, way to influence results, it's like there is something sinister here.
MarxIzalias 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias
The baby had already taken the blue one, the researcher took it away so the baby reached for the other one, there was nothing 'sinister' about it.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333
She put the blue one in his hand for the camera, because it wouldn't fit the message if the baby picked up the yellow one then the camera zoomed in on it.
The others laughed about it, but that is what I can see as a media graduate, the baby made a choice, then made another choice, which contradicted the message, the woman preempted it by forcing the blue object into the babies hand again.
MarxIzalias 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias
The baby wanted a toy and the preferred toy was taken away, the researcher was then embarrassed by her mistake because she was distracted talking. There was nothing improper going on. If they really wanted to be manipulative they simply would have done another take, they left it in because it didn't mean anything.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333
It does mean something because a viewer took meaning from it.
MarxIzalias 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias
Yes, it means that viewer is a paranoid freak.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333
In answer to the paranoid freak. Try not to ad-hominem me I could quite easily dance all over the validity of the study because it uses terms which aren't objectively verifiable.
Also if the woman can coerce the child on camera, there is no way of knowing if she did it off camera but there is one thing we do know, she did it which makes her easily capable.
MarxIzalias 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias
Everyone is capable of murder is that evidence that everyone is a murder? If you question the validity of the study look up the research papers rather than nitpicking a stupid gaff someone made in a documentary. Your arguments are ridiculous and tiresome.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias Scientifically it means nothing, it means the baby was reduced to one option. Media wise it might mean something, and no doubt media techniques were used to convey the intended meaning, but the action itself has no scientific relevance except that the baby would take any toy if it was the only option.
ToraJutsu01 1 year ago
@ToraJutsu01
Actually it has rather interesting implications. We don't know if the baby was given instruction before that take, there is no way of knowing aside from what they tell us but when the woman instructs the baby quite clearly, "no this one", it can make make a person wonder if that occurred before the camera is turned on, because it occurred during the recording. How many takes were there and did the same thing happen during those takes, there is only one way of knowing
MarxIzalias 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias The same could be said for every documentry, do you suggest we completely ignore them and what the present? or do you suggest we think about whether it is likely or whether their is reason to tweak the doco? What purpose does it serve, if they tweak the take and its not scientifically varified it has no meaning, scientists will use the research papers, not the doco. your applying possibilities from a media perspective, not one that influences the scientific validity of the study.
ToraJutsu01 1 year ago
@MarxIzalias
Actually your comments prove the point of the video, people will find intention where there is none. Nice Job.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago
@FlyingFree333 Yes the professor did say that we have a "paranoid" instinct that assumes intent on animate objects.Add that too our innate need for anthropomorphic characterization and bingo...You have a god!
Thereminator101 1 year ago
We see the birth of the gods in the minds of man, looking at the clouds, we asked who was moving them, and not immediately what.
spartacandream 1 year ago 4
racism is evolved.
MensRifleAssociation 1 year ago
@MensRifleAssociation
So is your appendix and your inability to produce vitamin C, both can kill you. The fact that something has evolved doesn't make it right, rape evolved too.
FlyingFree333 1 year ago