Morality is Innate, Kinda

At least while we're young, we have a preference for kindness and goodness.  In Paul Bloom's study he had infants watch several puppet shows.  One performance showed a puppet helping a puppet in need while another show had a puppet being a nuisance to the puppet in need.  After the shows, the infants are presented with a choice: grab and play with the helpful puppet or the unhelpful puppet.  Does this mean that infants are innately good or just that they prefer toys that are helpful rather than annoying?  Maybe annoyance avoidance is innate ;).

You can check out this short video showing the actual experiment.  The experiment is genius even if the conclusions are questionable.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827821.900-morality-infant-origins-of-human-kindness.html 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all 

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