Biologist are recently studying children and their already developed urge to help people. Have you ever notice that if you drop something in front of a toddler, they will go out of their way to pick it up for you? Until this article that I read I really never noticed that toddlers go out of their way to help you but now that it has been noticed I have seen this actually happen! The article says that toddlers are learning this before they are even taught good behavior. I find this very interesting that a toddler would know nice and polite behavior before even developing the other motor skills that they need. Dr. Tomasello says that "helping is a natural inclination, not something imposed by parents or culture." If you notice with younger children they are always grabbing things that they want and pointing to things that they want so it is a natural reaction for them to pick something up when they see someone they know drop something. However as a child gets older they may start to not help or share as much. It is a natural reaction for children to do this because they get a sense of what others do. They have been watching what their parents do for a few years to get a sense of direction. Research also says that besides children having this sense helpfulness they also can be a bit selfish depending on what they see by the path of their parents. This article was a big shock to me to hear that children basically at birth have an urge to help others when they are in need. It's very fascinating and unique to see something like this in the world today.
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I don’t know what toddlers these scientists were studying!! Studies have shown that a full grown pig is more intelligent than a three year old. And I’ve never had a pig pick something up for and return out of the goodness of its heart. I just have a problem with this study I guess. I don’t see how a toddler can learn how to be good without someone teaching them. That’s how we learn everything we know. We learn to speak from hearing our parents. Just like we learn how to act from watching our parents.
It also doesn’t make sense to me that a kid would have an innate sense of kindness and not one for selfishness. If humans were born with this innate sense of kindness, the how would anyone be unkind. Since this study says people learn how to be unkind from their environment. If everyone was kind from birth, then there would no unkind people because no one would develop that trait…everyone would just be kind.
I do think there are some traits that we do have from birth. Like the need for protection and shelter. That seems like more of an evolutionary trait though. I don’t see how kindness would be an evolutionary trait. If anything I would think selfishness and unkindness would be traits.
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