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Do infants prefer prosocial others? A direct replication of Hamlin & Wynn (2011)

University of British Columbia

Within the last five years, social sciences, especially psychology, have seen problems with replicability and reproducibility. A growing body of evidence suggests that low powered studies, undisclosed statistical flexibility and lack of pre-specified study standards are all contributing factors to a low rate of replicability. Within the realm of infant social evaluation, a topic of both theoretical interest and empirical controversy, both replications and non- replications exist. Given this, and the movement toward replication in psychology in general, this paper will present results both a pre-registered sample and a larger sample that directly replicates Hamlin & Wynn’s (2011) “box scenario”, which examines whether preverbal infants prefer prosocial to antisocial others. Our pre-registered sample did not replicate the original finding seen in Hamlin & Wynn (2011). However, when including all infants tested in the box scenario, the finding did indeed replicate. Overall, our findings add to the scientific understanding of infant social evaluation and provide an important opportunity to add to the replicability movement.

Text

2018-09-28

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67272

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/