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Babies have an inherent mean streak, say Canadian researchers

A recent study published in Psychological Science suggests that babies -- yes, those cute little bundles of joy --- actually have a hidden mean streak and wish harm on others.

The University of British Columbia psychology study finds that infants as young as 9 months old assess their surroundings to determine who their friends and enemies are. They then embrace those who pick on their "enemies."

"It was shocking how robust the results were," study lead author, Kiley Hamlin, tells the Canadian Press.

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The researchers took a group of 112 babies (9- and 14-month-olds) and determined their food preference for either graham crackers or green beans.

The infants then watched a puppet show in which one puppet preferred graham crackers, while another preferred green beans. The puppets then either harmed, helped or acted neutrally towards each other based on having different or similar food preferences.

"Results showed that the babies far preferred the puppets who harmed the puppet with the opposite food preferences to their own. One baby even planted a kiss on the puppet she liked," reports CTV News.

Hamlin says almost all of the 112 babies participating in the study acted out the friend-enemy dynamic.

"The current results would suggest that such biases, rather than being solely the result of accumulated experience...are based in part on an inborn or early-developing propensity to like those whom we recognize as similar to ourselves and to dislike those who differ from us. These tendencies are already operative in the first year of human life," Hamlin concludes the study.

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The authors also suggests that babies feel schaudenfreude -- pleasure experienced when someone you dislike or consider an enemy experiences harm. Yet they do maintain a a level of doubt.

"We could question whether infants really like seeing someone they dislike be harmed," Hamlin tells the Vancouver Sun. "What they might be doing is saying, 'He's being mean to that guy. He must not like him either. I want to be friends with him.'"

The authors believe this bullying attitude might be an early version of the social biases we develop as adults. We gravitate towards the people we have things in common with.

"The fact that infants show these social biases before they can even speak suggests that the biases aren’t solely the result of experiencing a divided social world, but are based in part on basic aspects of human social evaluation," says Hamlin.

Watch an example of the puppet preferences below.

And watch another video associated with the study here.

See all videos associated with the study here.