In children’s movies the lines between hero and villain are always thick and easy to determine. Sometimes they call out to their favorite character that the bad guy is trying to trick them, or they might lament a hero’s decision to make a deal with a suspicious character. What they don’t realize is that they have a lot more in common with these heroes than they think.
The Washington Post reports on a recent study that found, even as infants, we can distinguish the difference between those who do good and those who do bad… and we will side with the bad when it means more for us:
…the children who were offered 16 stickers from the bad character, rather than one sticker from the good guy. In this case, the discrepancy was so large that the children tended to choose the larger number.
The findings suggest that, when the winnings are modest, children will avoid “doing business” with a wrongdoer, the researchers say. “However, when the stakes are high, children show more willingness to ‘deal with the devil.’”
Read the whole Washington Post article here.
And today we celebrate...